Chapter 1. Loomings
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely-having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular tointerest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and seethe watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off thespleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myselfgrowing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzlyNovember in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausingbefore coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeralI meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand ofme, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me fromdeliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knockingpeople's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea assoon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With aphilosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; Iquietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. Ifthey but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time orother, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean withme. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted roundby wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs- commerce surrounds itwith her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Itsextreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed bywaves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were outof sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go fromCorlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels allaround the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixedin ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seatedupon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships fromChina; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get astill better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week dayspent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches,clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone?What do they here? But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content thembut the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady leeof yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just asnigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there theystand- miles of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanesand alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet herethey all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles ofthe compasses of all those ships attract them thither? Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land oflakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carriesyou down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream.There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plungedin his deepest reveries- stand that man on his legs, set his feeta-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water therebe in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the greatAmerican desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to besupplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows,meditation and water are wedded for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest,shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape inall the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs?There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit anda crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleephis cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deepinto distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlappingspurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though thepicture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes downits sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain,unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream beforehim. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores ofmiles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies- what is the one charmwanting?- Water- there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagarabut a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to seeit? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving twohandfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which hesadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to RockawayBeach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthysoul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why uponyour first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such amystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were nowout of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy?Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother ofJove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper themeaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not graspthe tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into itand was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in allrivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom oflife; and this is the key to it all. Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea wheneverI begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over consciousof my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go tosea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have apurse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it.Besides, passengers get sea-sick- grow quarrelsome- don't sleep ofnights- do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;- no, Inever go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do Iever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandonthe glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them.For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials,and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as Ican do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships,barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,-though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook beinga sort of officer on ship-board- yet, somehow, I never fanciedbroiling fowls;though once broiled, judiciously buttered, andjudgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speakmore respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl thanI will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptiansupon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummiesof those creatures in their huge bakehouses the pyramids. No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before themast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royalmast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jumpfrom spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And atfirst, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one'ssense of honor, particularly if you come of an old establishedfamily in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, orHardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting yourhand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a countryschoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. Thetransition is a keen one, I
assure you, from a schoolmaster to asailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics toenable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off intime. What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to geta broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amountto, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do youthink the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, becauseI promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particularinstance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however theold sea-captains may order me about- however they may thump andpunch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is allright; that everybody else is one way or other served in much thesame way- either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, thatis; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all handsshould rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content. Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a pointof paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers asingle penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengersthemselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the worldbetween paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps themost uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailedupon us. But being paid,- what will compare with it? The urbaneactivity with which a man receives money is really marvellous,considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root ofall earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enterheaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of thewholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as inthis world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds fromastern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), sofor the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets hisatmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. Hethinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way dothe commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the sametime that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was thatafter having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, Ishould now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this theinvisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constantsurveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in someunaccountable way- he can better answer than any one else. And,doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of thegrand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. Itcame in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between moreextensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill musthave run something like this: "Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. "WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL." "BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN." Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stagemanagers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whalingvoyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in hightragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jollyparts in farces- though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet,now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a littleinto the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to meunder various disguises, induced me to set about performing thepart I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was achoice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminatingjudgment.
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the greatwhale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused allmy curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled hisisland bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale;these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagoniansights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men,perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as forme, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. Ilove to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Notignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and couldstill be social with it- would they let me- since it is but well tobe on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodgesin. By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome;the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in thewild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two therefloated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and,mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill inthe air.
Chapter 2. The Carpet-Bag
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it undermy arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting thegood city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was aSaturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learningthat the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and thatno way of reaching that place would offer, till the followingMonday. As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whalingstop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, itmay as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing.For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft,because there was a fine, boisterous something about everythingconnected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me.Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizingthe business of whaling, and though in this matter poor oldNantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her greatoriginal- the Tyre of this Carthage;- the place where the firstdead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket didthose aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoesto give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too,did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly ladenwith imported cobblestones- so goes the story- to throw at thewhales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk aharpoon from the bowsprit? Now having a night, a day, and still another night followingbefore me in New Bedford, ere could embark for my destined port, itbecame a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleepmeanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark anddismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in theplace. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and onlybrought up a few pieces of silver,- So, wherever you go, Ishmael,said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary streetshouldering my bag, and comparing the towards the north with thedarkness towards the south- wherever in your wisdom you mayconclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure toinquire the price, and don't be too particular.
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of"The Crossed Harpoons"- but it looked too expensive and jollythere. Further on, from the bright red windows of the "SwordFishInn," there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have meltedthe packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere elsethe congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphalticpavement,- rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against theflinty projections, because from hard, remorseless service thesoles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensiveand jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broadglare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasseswithin. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? getaway from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way.So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took mewaterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not thecheeriest inns. Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on eitherhand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in atomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, thatquarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I cameto a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door ofwhich stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it weremeant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing Idid was to stumble over an ashbox in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha,as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from thatdestroyed city, Gomorrah? But "The Crossed Harpoons," and the "TheSword-Fish?"- this, then must needs be the sign of "The Trap."However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushedon and opened a second, interior door. It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. Ahundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond,a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was anegro church; and the preacher's text was about the blackness ofdarkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha,Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at thesign of 'The Trap!' Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far fromthe docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up,saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it,faintly representing tall straight jet of misty spray, and thesewords underneath- "The Spouter Inn:- Peter Coffin." Coffin?- Spouter?- Rather ominous in that particular connexion,thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and Isuppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the lightlooked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough,and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if itmight have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district,and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak toit, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, andthe best of pea coffee. It was a queer sort of place- a gable-ended old house, one sidepalsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharpbleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up aworse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft.Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any onein-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. "In ofthat tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," says an old writer- ofwhose works I possess the only copy extant- "it maketh a marvellousdifference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass
windowwhere the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest itfrom that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and ofwhich the wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, thought I,as this passage occurred to my mind- old black-letter, thoureasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mineis the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and thecrannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. Butit's too late to make any improvements now. The universe isfinished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off amillion years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth againstthe curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with hisshiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put acorn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out thetempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his redsilken wrapper- (he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What afine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Letthem talk of their oriental summer climes of everlastingconservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer withmy own coals. But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holdingthem up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather bein Sumatra than here? Would he not far rather lay him downlengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down tothe fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost? Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstonebefore the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that aniceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself,he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, andbeing a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepidtears of orphans. But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, andthere is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from ourfrosted feet, and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" maybe.
Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn
Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in awide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, remindingone of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung avery large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every waydefaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, itwas only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it,and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arriveat an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses ofshades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitiousyoung artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavoredto delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnestcontemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially bythrowing open the little window towards the back of the entry, youat last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild,might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of thepicture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in anameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough todrive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that
fairly frozeyou to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself tofind out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon abright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.- It's theBlack Sea in a midnight gale.- It's the unnatural combat of thefour primal elements.- It's a blasted heath.- It's a Hyperboreanwinter scene.- It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time.But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous somethingin the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest wereplain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a giganticfish? even the great leviathan himself? In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of myown, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged personswith whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents aCape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship welteringthere with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and anexasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is inthe enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads. The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with aheathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thicklyset with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tuftedwith knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vasthandle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grassby a long-armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wonderedwhat monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone adeath-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixedwith these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all brokenand deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance,now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteenwhales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon- so like acorkscrew now- was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by awhale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The originaliron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourningin the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last wasfound imbedded in the hump. Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way-cut through what in old times must have been a great centralchimney with fireplaces all round- you enter the public room. Astill duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above,and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancyyou trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howlingnight, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. Onone side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with crackedglass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wideworld's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of theroom stands a dark-looking den- the bar- a rude attempt at a rightwhale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched boneof the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it.Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters,bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, likeanother cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him),bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearlysells the sailors deliriums and death. Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.Though true cylinders withoutwithin, the villanous green gogglingglasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom.Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround thesefootpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but apenny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass- the CapeHorn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling.
Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamengathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimensof skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desiredto be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his housewas full- not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping hisforehead, "you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer'sblanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'd betterget used to that sort of thing." I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if Ishould ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer mightbe, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me,and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather thanwander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I wouldput up with the half of any decent man's blanket. "I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?- you want supper?Supper'll be ready directly." I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a benchon the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still furtheradorning it with his jack-knife, stooping over and diligentlyworking away at the space between his legs. He was trying his handat a ship under full sail, but he didn't make much headway, Ithought. At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in anadjoining room. It was cold as Iceland- no fire at all- thelandlord said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallowcandles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up ourmonkey jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with ourhalf frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind-not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings; good heavens! dumplingsfor supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himselfto these dumplings in a most direful manner. "My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have the nightmare to adead sartainty." "Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the harpooneer is it?" "Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, "theharpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, hedon't- he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare." "The devil he does," says I. "Where is that harpooneer? Is hehere?" "He'll be here afore long," was the answer. I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this"dark complexioned" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind thatif it so turned out that we should sleep together, he must undressand get into bed before I did. Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when,knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend therest of the evening as a looker on.
Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, thelandlord cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported inthe offing this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship.Hurrah, boys; now we'll have the latest news from the Feegees." A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door wasflung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Envelopedin their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled inwoollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiffwith icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. Theyhad just landed from their boat, and this was the first house theyentered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for thewhale's mouth- the bar- when the wrinkled little old Jonah, thereofficiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. Onecomplained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him apitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was asovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind ofhow long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, oron the weather side of an ice-island. The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally doeseven with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and theybegan capering about most obstreperously. I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, andthough he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of hisshipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrainedfrom making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me atonce; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soonbecome my shipmate (though but a sleeping partner one, so far asthis narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a littledescription of him. He stood full six feet in height, with nobleshoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen suchbrawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making hiswhite teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows ofhis eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give himmuch joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, andfrom his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tallmountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When therevelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this manslipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became mycomrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by hisshipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favoritewith them, they raised a cry of "Bulkington! Bulkington! where'sBulkington?" and darted out of the house in pursuit of him. It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almostsupernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulatemyself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous tothe entrance of the seamen. No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a gooddeal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how itis, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And whenit comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, ina strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then yourobjections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reasonwhy I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybodyelse; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelorKings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in oneapartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself withyour own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.
The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominatedthe thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that beinga harpooneer, his linen or woolen, as the case might be, would notbe of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitchall over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneerought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumblein upon me at midnight- how could I tell from what vile hole he hadbeen coming? "Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.- I shan'tsleep with him. I'll try the bench here." "Just as you please; I'm sorry I cant spare ye a tablecloth fora mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here"- feeling of theknots and notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got acarpenter's plane there in the bar- wait, I say, and I'll make yesnug enough." So saying he procured the plane; and with his oldsilk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set toplaning away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. Theshavings flew right and left; till at last the plane-iron came bumpagainst an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining hiswrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit- the bed was softenough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in theworld could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up theshavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stovein the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left mein a brown study. I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was afoot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was afoot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about fourinches higher than the planed one- so there was no yoking them. Ithen placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear spaceagainst the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back tosettle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught ofcold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this planwould never do at all, especially as another current from therickety door met the one from the window, and both together formeda series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spotwhere I had thought to spend the night. The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't Isteal a march on him- bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed,not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no badidea but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tellbut what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, theharpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock medown! Still looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance ofspending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, Ibegan to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantableprejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll waitawhile; he must be dropping in before long. I'll have a good lookat him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows afterall- there's no telling. But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, andthrees, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. "Landlord! said I, "what sort of a chap is he- does he alwayskeep such late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.
The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed tobe mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," heanswered, "generally he's an early bird- airley to bed and airleyto rise- yea, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night hewent out a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keepshim so late, unless, may be, he can't sell his head." "Can't sell his head?- What sort of a bamboozingly story is thisyou are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretendto say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged thisblessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling hishead around this town?" "That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him hecouldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked." "With what?" shouted I. "With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in theworld?" "I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly, "you'dbetter stop spinning that yarn to meI'm not green." "May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, "butI rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hearsyou a slanderin' his head." "I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion againat this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. "It's broke a'ready," said he. "Broke," said I- "broke, do you mean?" "Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, Iguess." "Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in asnowstorm- "landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand oneanother, and that too without delay. I come to your house and wanta bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the otherhalf belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer,whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the mostmystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me anuncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for mybedfellow- a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate andconfidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you tospeak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whetherI shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And inthe first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story aboutselling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence thatthis harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with amadman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying toinduce me to do so knowingly would thereby render yourself liableto a criminal prosecution."
"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's apurty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. Butbe easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you ofhas just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he's soldall on 'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell to-night,cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin' humanheads about the streets when folks is goin' to churches. He wantedto last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin' out of thedoor with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like astring of inions." This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, andshowed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me-but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayedout of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged insuch a cannibal business as selling the heads of deadidolators? "Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerousman." "He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come, it's a nicebed: Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced.There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; it's analmighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to putour Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreamingand sprawling about one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on thefloor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said itwouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy;" andso saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me, offering tolead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a clock inthe corner, he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday- you won't see thatharpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere- come alongthen; do come; won't ye come?" I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went,and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished,sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed forany four harpooneers to sleep abreast. "There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy oldsea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table;"there, make yourself comfortable now; and good night to ye." Iturned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Thoughnone of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well.I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centretable, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but arude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing aman striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room,there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in onecorner; also a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer'swardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was aparcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over thefire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed. But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it closeto the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every waypossible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. Ican compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at theedges with little tinkling tags something like the stainedporcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slitin the middle of
this mat, as you see the same in South Americanponchos. But could it be possible that any sober harpooneer wouldget into a door mat, and parade the streets of any Christian townin that sort of guise? I put it on, to try it, and it weighed medown like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and Ithought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer hadbeen wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glassstuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. Itore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink inthe neck. I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking aboutthis head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinkingsome time on the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket,and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took offmy coat, and thought a little more in my shirt sleeves. Butbeginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, andremembering what the landlord said about the harpooneer's notcoming home at all that night, it being so very late, I made nomore ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and thenblowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to thecare of heaven. Whether that mattress was stuffed with corncobs or brokencrockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, andcould not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a lightdoze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land ofNod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw aglimmer of light come into the room from under the door. Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, theinfernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved notto say a word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and thatidentical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered theroom, and without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a goodway off from me on the floor in one corner, and then began workingaway at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of asbeing in the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he keptit averted for some time while employed in unlacing the bag'smouth. This accomplished, however, he turned round- when, goodheavens; what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, purplish,yellow color, here and there stuck over with large blackish lookingsquares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible bedfellow;he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just fromthe surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face sotowards the light, that I plainly saw they could not besticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. Theywere stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to makeof this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. Iremembered a story of a white man- a whaleman too- who, fallingamong the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded thatthis harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must havemet with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all!It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. Butthen, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, Imean, lying round about, and completely independent of the squaresof tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat oftropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a whiteman into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in theSouth Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinaryeffects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passingthrough me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all.But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commencedfumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and aseal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chestin the middle of a room, he then took the New Zealand head- aghastly thing enough- and crammed it down into the bag. He now tookoff his hat- a new beaver hat- when I came nigh singing out withfresh surprise. There was no hair on
his head- none to speak of atleast- nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead.His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewedskull. Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I wouldhave bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of thewindow, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but whatto make of this headpeddling purple rascal altogether passed mycomprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and beingcompletely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confessI was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself whohad thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I wasso afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to addresshim, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemedinexplicable in him. Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at lastshowed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of himwere checkered with the same squares as his face, his back, too,was all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in aThirty Years' War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plastershirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as a parcel of darkgreen frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. It was nowquite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shippedaboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in thisChristian country. I quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too-perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy tomine- heavens! look at that tomahawk! But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage wentabout something that completely fascinated my attention, andconvinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavygrego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung ona chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length acurious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactlythe color of a three days' old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmedhead, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a realbaby preserved some similar manner. But seeing that it was not atall limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony,I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeedit proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the emptyfire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, sets up thislittle hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. Thechimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that Ithought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine orchapel for his Congo idol. I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image,feeling but ill at ease meantime- to see what was next to follow.First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his gregopocket, and places them carefully before the idol; then laying abit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, hekindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, aftermany hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals ofhis fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he atlast succeeded in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing off theheat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the littlenegro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort offare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange antics wereaccompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, whoseemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some paganpsalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the mostunnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idolup very
unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket ascarelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, andseeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding hisbusiness operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it washigh time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break thespell in which I had so long been bound. But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was afatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined thehead of it for an instant, and then holding it to the light, withhis mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobaccosmoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wildcannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. Isang out, I could not help it now; and giving a sudden grunt ofastonishment he began feeling me. Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away fromhim against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever hemight be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lampagain. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he butill comprehended my meaning. "Who-e debel you?"- he at last said- "you no speak-e, dam-me, Ikill-e." And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing aboutme in the dark. "Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!" shouted I. "Landlord!Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!" "Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!" againgrowled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawkscattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linenwould get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlordcame into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran upto him. "Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again, "Queequeg herewouldn't harm a hair of your head." "Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why didn't you tell methat that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?" "I thought ye know'd it;- didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin'heads around town?- but turn flukes again and go to sleep.Queequeg, look here- you sabbee me, I sabbee- you this man sleepeyouyou sabbee?" "Me sabbee plenty"- grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipeand sitting up in bed. "You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk,and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in notonly a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood lookingat him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole aclean, comely looking cannibal. What's all this fuss I have beenmaking about, thought I to myself- the man's a human being just
asI am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraidof him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunkenChristian. "Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his tomahawk there, orpipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short,and I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smokingin bed with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured." This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and againpolitely motioned me to get into bed- rolling over to one side asmuch as to say- I won't touch a leg of ye." "Good night, landlord," said I, "you may go." I turned in, and never slept better in my life.
Chapter 4. The Counterpane
Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's armthrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You hadalmost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was ofpatchwork, full of odd little parti-colored squares and triangles;and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretanlabyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one preciseshade- owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodicallyin sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up atvarious times- this same arm of his, I say, looked for all theworld like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partlylying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tellit from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and it wasonly by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell thatQueequeg was hugging me. My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When Iwas a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance thatbefell me; whether it was a reality or a dream, I never couldentirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting upsome caper or other- I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney,as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and mystepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, orsending me to bed supperless,- my mother dragged me by the legs outof the chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only twoo'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, the longest day in yearin our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But there was no help for it,so up stairs I went to my little room in the third floor, undressedmyself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, and with a bittersigh got between the sheets. I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours mustelapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours inbed! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so lighttoo; the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling ofcoaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over thehouse. I felt worse and worse- at last I got up, dressed, andsoftly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother,and suddenly threw myself at her feet, beseeching her as aparticular favor to give me a good slippering for my misbehaviour:anything indeed but condemning me to lie abed such an unendurablelength of time. But she was the best and most conscientious ofstepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For several hours Ilay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have everdone
since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At lastI must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowlywaking from it- half steeped in dreams- I opened my eyes, and thebefore sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly Ifelt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen,and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placedin mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless,unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged,seemed closely seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled onages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring todrag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir itone single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not howthis consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in themorning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeksand months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts toexplain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myselfwith it. Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling thesupernatural hand in mine were very similar, in the strangeness, tothose which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's paganarm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's eventssoberly recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay onlyalive to the comical predicament. For though I tried to move hisarm- unlock his bridegroom clasp- yet, sleeping as he was, he stillhugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.I now strove to rouse him- "Queequeg!"but his only answer was asnore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in ahorse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing asidethe counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage'sside, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly,thought I; abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with acannibal and a tomahawk! "Queequeg!- in the name of goodness,Queequeg, wake!" At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud andincessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging afellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded inextracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shookhimself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, andsat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbinghis eyes as if he did not altogether remember how I came to bethere, though a dim consciousness of knowing something about meseemed slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeinghim, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowlyobserving so curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemedmade up touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, asit were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon the floor, andby certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if itpleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dressafterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I,Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilizedoverture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense ofdelicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentiallypolite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg,because he treated me with so much civility and consideration,while I was guilty of great rudeness; staring at him from the bed,and watching all his toilette motions; for the time my curiositygetting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, a man likeQueequeg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well worthunusual regarding. He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a verytall one, by the by, and thenstill minus his trowsers- he huntedup his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell,but his next movement was to crush himself- boots in hand, and haton- under the bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings andstrainings, I inferred he was hard at work booting himself;
thoughby no law of propriety that I ever heard of, is any man required tobe private when putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, wasa creature in the transition stage- neither caterpillar norbutterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off hisoutlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His education wasnot yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not been asmall degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubledhimself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still asavage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to putthem on. At last, he emerged with his hat very much dented andcrushed down over his eyes, and began creaking and limping aboutthe room, as if, not being much accustomed to boots, his pair ofdamp, wrinkled cowhide ones- probably not made to order either-rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bittercold morning. Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and thatthe street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plainview into the room, and observing more and more the indecorousfigure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but hishat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to acceleratehis toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons assoon as possible. He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself.At that time in the morning any Christian would have washed hisface; but Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself withrestricting his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He thendonned his waistcoat, and taking up a piece of hard soap on thewash-stand centre table, dipped it into water and commencedlathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept his razor,when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slipsout the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a littleon his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall,begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with avengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when Icame to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, andhow exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept. The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marchedout of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, andsporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton.
Chapter 5. Breakfast
I quickley followed suit, and descending into the bar-roomaccosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished nomalice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not alittle in the matter of my bedfellow. However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather tooscarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, inhis own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, lethim not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spendand to be spent in that way. And the man that has anythingbountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that manthan you perhaps think for. The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been droppingin the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good lookat. They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates,and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and seablacksmiths, and
harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawnycompany, with bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearingmonkey jackets for morning gowns. You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore.This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear inhue, and would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have beenthree days landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks afew shades lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him.In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, butslightly bleached withal; he doubtless has tarried whole weeksashore. But who could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barredwith various tints, seemed like the Andes' western slope, to showforth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone. "Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and inwe went to breakfast. They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quiteat ease in manner, quite selfpossessed in company. Not always,though: Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park,the Scotch one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance inthe parlor. But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledgedrawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk onan empty stomach, in the negro heart of Africa, which was the sumof poor Mungo's performances- this kind of travel, I say, may notbe the very best mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, forthe most part, that sort of thing is to be had anywhere. These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstancethat after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing tohear some good stories about whaling; to my no small surprisenearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that,but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, manyof whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whaleson the high seas- entire strangers to them- and duelled them deadwithout winking; and yet, here they sat at a social breakfasttable- all of the same calling, all of kindred tasteslookinground as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been outof sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. A curioussight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen! But as for Queequeg- why, Queequeg sat there among them- at thehead of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To besure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer couldnot have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon intobreakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reachingover the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, andgrappling the beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly verycoolly done by him, and every one knows that in most people'sestimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how heeschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attentionto beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over hewithdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted histomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smokingwith his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a stroll.
Chapter 6. The Street
If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of sooutlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the politesociety of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upontaking my first daylight stroll through the streets of NewBedford. In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport willfrequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts fromforeign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterraneanmariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Streetis not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the ApolloGreen, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedfordbeats all Water Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned hauntsyou see only sailors; in New Bedford, actual cannibals standchatting at street corners; savages outright; many of whom yetcarry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare. But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans,Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens ofthe whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you willsee other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. Thereweekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and NewHampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. Theyare mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felledforests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance.Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In somethings you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! thatchap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat andswallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife.Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I meana downright bumpkin dandya fellow that, in the dog-days, will mowhis two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Nowwhen a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make adistinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, youshould see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. Inbespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to hiswaistcoats; straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! howbitterly will burst those straps in the first howling gale, whenthou art driven, straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of thetempest. But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers,cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still NewBedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, thattract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howlingcondition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her backcountry are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The townitself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England.It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land,also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor inthe springtime do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite ofthis, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-likehouses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whencecame they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of acountry? Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonderlofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all thesebrave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific,and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged uphither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform afeat like that?
In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers totheir daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoisesa-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding;for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, andevery night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceticandles. In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples-long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, thebeautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, profferthe passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms.So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford hassuperinduced bright terraces ot flowers upon the barren refuserocks thrown aside at creation's final day. And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own redroses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnationof their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem,where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailorsweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawingnigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.
Chapter 7. The Chapel
In the same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, andfew are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean orPacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am surethat I did not. Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out uponthis special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, todriving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of thecloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm.Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, andsailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only brokenat times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemedpurposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent griefwere insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived;and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastlyeyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into thewall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something likethe following, but I do not pretend to quote: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November 1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, August 3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, Iseated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised tosee Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene,
therewas a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance.This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice myentrance; because he was the only one who could not read, and,therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall.Whether any of the relatives of the seamen whose names appearedthere were now among the congregation, I knew not; but so many arethe unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did severalwomen present wear the countenance if not the trappings of someunceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me wereassembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleaktablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; whostanding among flowers can say- here, here lies my beloved; ye knownot the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitterblanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! Whatdespair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids andunbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon allFaith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelesslyperished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in thecave of Elephanta as here. In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind areincluded; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, thatthey tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the GoodwinSands! how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for theother world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yetdo not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indiesof this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies paydeath-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirringparalysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam whodied sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse tobe comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling inunspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all thedead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrifya whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even fromthese dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve ofa Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by themurky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of thewhalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may bethine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements toembark, fine chance for promotion, it seems- aye, a stove boat willmake me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this businessof whaling- a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man intoEternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken thismatter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadowhere on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking atthings spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sunthrough the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest ofair. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In facttake my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And thereforethree cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove bodywhen they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.
Chapter 8. The Pulpit
I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerablerobustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew backupon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all thecongregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was thechaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by thewhalemen, among whom he was a very great favorite. He had been asailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past haddedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of,Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; thatsort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth,for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certainmild gleams of a newly developing bloom- the spring verdure peepingforth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously heardhis history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple withoutthe utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clericalpeculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritimelife he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried noumbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for histarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilotcloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weightof the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoeswere one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in anadjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietlyapproached the pulpit. Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, andsince a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long anglewith the floor, seriously contract the already small area of thechapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of FatherMapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting aperpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship froma boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided thechapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for thisladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with amahogany color, the whole contrivance, considering what manner ofchapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for aninstant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping theornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a lookupwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverentialdexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending themain-top of his vessel. The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually thecase with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only therounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At myfirst glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that howeverconvenient for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemedunnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple aftergaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over thepulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till thewhole was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his littleQuebec. I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason forthis. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerityand sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety byany mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be somesober reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolizesomething unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physicalisolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, fromall outward worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished withthe meat and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, thispulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold- a loftyEhrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within thewalls.
But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of theplace, borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between themarble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall whichformed its back was adorned with a large painting representing agallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast ofblack rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud anddark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, fromwhich beamed forth an angel's face; and this bright face shed adistant spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, somethinglike that silver plate now inserted into Victory's plank whereNelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angel seemed to say, "beat on,beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun isbreaking through; the clouds are rolling off- serenest azure is athand." Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-tastethat had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled frontwas in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Biblerested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after aship's fiddle-headed beak. What could be more full of meaning?- for the pulpit is ever thisearth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpitleads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrathis first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. Fromthence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked forfavorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, andnot a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
Chapter 9. The Sermon
Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authorityordered the scattered people to condense. "Star board gangway,there! side away to larboard- larboard gangway to starboard!Midships! midships!" There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches,and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quietagain, and every eye on the preacher. He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, foldedhis large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes,and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling andpraying at the bottom of the sea. This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continualtolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog- insuch tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changinghis manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with apealing exultation and joyThe ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom, While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down to doom. I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but they that feel can tell- Oh, I was plunging to despair. In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints- No more the whale did me confine. With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The face of my Deliverer God. My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.
Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high abovethe howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowlyturned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his handdown upon the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch thelast verse of the first chapter of Jonah- 'And God had prepared agreat fish to swallow up Jonah.'" "Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters- fouryarns- is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of theScriptures. Yet what depths of the soul Jonah's deep sealine sound!what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing isthat canticle in the fish's belly! How billow-like and boisterouslygrand! We feel the floods surging over us, we sound with him to thekelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the seais about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonahteaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us allas sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. Assinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of thesin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swiftpunishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance andjoy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son ofAmittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God- nevermind now what that command was, or how conveyed- which he found ahard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hardfor us to do- remember that- and hence, he oftener commands us thanendeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobeyourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein thehardness of obeying God consists. "With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still furtherflouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a shipmade by men, will carry him into countries where God does not reignbut only the Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves ofJoppa, and seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks,perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshishcould have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That's theopinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is inSpain; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly havesailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almostunknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on themost easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshishor Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that,just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates,that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God? Miserable man! Oh!most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat andguilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping likea vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered,self-condemning in his look, that had there been policemen in thosedays, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had beenarrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! nobaggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,- no friendsaccompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after muchdodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last itemsof her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its Captain in thecabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in thegoods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this; but invain he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays hiswretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners hecan be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, onewhispers to the other- "Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, doyou mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's theadulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of themissing murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that'sstuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored,offering five hundred gold coins for the apprenhension of aparricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads,and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his
sympatheticshipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands uponhim. Frightened Jonah trembles. and summoning all his boldness tohis face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confesshimself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makesthe best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be the manthat is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into thecabin. "'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedlymaking out his papers for the Customs- 'Who's there?' Oh! how thatharmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns toflee again. But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship toTarshish; how soon sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had notlooked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but nosooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizingglance. 'We sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowlyanswered, still intently eyeing him. 'No sooner, sir?''Soonenough for any honest man that goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that'sanother stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from thatscent. 'I'll sail with ye,'- he says,- 'the passage money how muchis that?- I'll pay now.' For it is particularly written, shipmates,as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, 'thathe paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And taken withthe context, this is full of meaning. "Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernmentdetects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in thepenniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way cantravel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper,is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to testthe length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly. He chargeshim thrice the usual sum; and it's assented to. Then the Captainknows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same time resolves tohelp a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairlytakes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the Captain.He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way,he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. 'Point out mystate-room, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.''Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonahenters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key.Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly tohimself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts' cellsbeing never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and dusty ashe is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the littlestate-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air isclose, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too,beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the heraldingpresentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold himin the smallest of his bowels' wards. "Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightlyoscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards thewharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flameand all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanentobliquity with reference to the room; though, in truth, infalliblystraight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels amongwhich it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in hisberth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus farsuccessful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. Butthat contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor,the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. 'Oh! so my consciencehangs in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it burns; but thechambers of my soul are all in crookedness!'
"Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed,still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as theplungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike hissteel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight stillturns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilationuntil the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe hefeels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds todeath, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunchit; so, after sore wrestling in his berth, Jonah's prodigy ofponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. "And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off hercables; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship forTarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, wasthe first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But thesea rebels; he will not bare the wicked burden. A dreadful stormcomes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswaincalls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars areclattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men areyelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right overJonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideoussleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reelingtimbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mightywhale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas afterhim. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of theship- a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep.But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his deadear, 'What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from hislethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, andstumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea.But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leapingover the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, andfinding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the marinerscome nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moonshows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blacknessoverhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing highupward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormenteddeep. "Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all hiscringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. Thesailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions ofhim, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the wholematter to high Heaven, they alloutward to casting lots, to see forwhose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's;that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with theirquestions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thycountry? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior ofpoor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and wherefrom; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions,but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but theunsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of Godthat is upon him. "'I am a Hebrew,' he cries- and then- 'I fear the Lord the Godof Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, OJonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway,he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the marinersbecame more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For whenJonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too wellknew the darkness of his deserts,- when wretched Jonah cries out tothem to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew thatfor his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turnfrom him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all invain; the
indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raisedinvokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay holdof Jonah. "And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into thesea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, andthe sea is as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smoothwater behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such amasterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he dropsseething into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whaleshoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon hisprison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly.But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful ashe is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. Hefeels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all hisdeliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of allhis pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple.And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorousfor pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to Godwas this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance ofhim from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonahbefore you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before youas a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed torepent of it like Jonah." While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking,slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher,who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a stormhimself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossedarms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders thatrolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping fromhis eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fearthat was strange to them. There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned overthe leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standingmotionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing withGod and himself. But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his headlowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, hespake these words: "Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his handspress upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine thelesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, andstill more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now howgladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatchesthere where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one ofyou reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teachesto me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointedpilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden by the Lord tosound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh,Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from hismission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking shipat Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As wehave seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him downto living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked himten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about hishead,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet eventhen beyond the reach of any plummet- 'out of the belly of hell'-when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then,God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then Godspake unto the fish; and from the
shuddering cold and blackness ofthe sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasantsun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonahupon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a second time;and Jonah, bruised and beaten- his ears, like two seashells, stillmultitudinously murmuring of the ocean- Jonah did the Almighty'sbidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to theface of Falsehood! That was it! "This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to thatpilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this worldcharms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon thewaters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeksto please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is moreto him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts notdishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be falsewere salvation! Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul has it,while preaching to others is himself a castaway! He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then liftinghis face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he criedout with a heavenly enthusiasm,- "But oh! shipmates! on thestarboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higherthe top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is notthe main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to himafar, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods andcommodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorableself. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when theship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him.Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills,burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under therobes of Senators and Judges. Delight,- top-gallant delight is tohim, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and isonly a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves ofthe billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake fromthis sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousnesswill be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his finalbreath- O Father!- chiefly known to me by Thy rod- mortal orimmortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to bethis world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity toThee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of hisGod?" He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered hisface with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the peoplehad departed, and he was left alone in the place.
Chapter 10. A Bosom Friend
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequegthere quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benedictionsome time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feeton the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to hisface that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, andwith a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhilehumming to himself in his heathenish way. But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon,going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it onhis lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; atevery fiftieth page- as I fancied- stopping for a moment, lookingvacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurglingwhistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the nextfifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though hecould not count more
than fifty, and it was only by such a largenumber of fifties being found together, that his astonishment atthe multitude of pages was excited. With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, andhideously marred about the face- at least to my taste- hiscountenance yet had a something in it which was by no meansdisagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthlytattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart;and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemedtokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besidesall this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, whicheven his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like aman who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether itwas, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out infreer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than itotherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain itwas his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seemridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, asseen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularlygraded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewisevery projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top.Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed. Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretendingmeanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, henever heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much as asingle glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pagesof the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had beensleeping together the night previous, and especially consideringthe affectionate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking in themorning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. Butsavages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how totake them. At first they are overawing; their calmself-collectedness of simplicity seems as Socratic wisdom. I hadnoticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but verylittle, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advanceswhatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of hisacquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, uponsecond thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here wasa man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of CapeHorn, that is- which was the only way he could get there- thrownamong people as strange to him as though he were in the planetJupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving theutmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equalto himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though nodoubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But,perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not beconscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that suchor such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that,like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have "broken hisdigester." As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, inthat mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air,it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantomsgathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent,solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I beganto be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No moremy splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against thewolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat,his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked nocivilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. he was; a very sight ofsights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawntowards him. And those same things that would have
repelled mostothers, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll try apagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved buthollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendlysigns and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At firsthe little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referringto his last night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether wewere again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought helooked pleased, perhaps a little complimented. We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored toexplain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of thefew pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; andfrom that we went to jabbering the best we could about the variousouter sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed asocial smoke; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietlyoffered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wildpipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us. If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in thePagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed itout, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite asnaturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over,he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist,and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country'sphrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, ifneed should be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendshipwould have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted;but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply. After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to ourroom together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took outhis enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drewout some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on thetable, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions,pushed one of them towards me, and said it was mine. I was going toremonstrate; but he silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers'pockets. I let them stay. He then went about his evening prayers,took out his idol, and removed the paper firebrand. By certainsigns and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him;but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a momentwhether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise. I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of theinfallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with thiswild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what isworship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that themagnanimous God of heaven and earth- pagans and all included- canpossibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood?Impossible! But what is worship?- to do the will of God? that isworship. And what is the will of God?- to do to my fellow man whatI would have my fellow man to do to me- that is the will of God.Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that thisQueequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particularPresbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite withhim in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings;helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuitwith Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose;and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our ownconsciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep withoutsome little chat.
How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed forconfidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say,there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and someold couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg- a cosy,loving pair.
Chapter 11. Nightgown
We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at shortintervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing hisbrown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; soentirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, byreason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained inus altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, thoughday-break was yet some way down the future. Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbentposition began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we foundourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaningagainst the headboard with our four knees drawn up close together,and our two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans werewarming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it wasso chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing thatthere was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly toenjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for thereis no quality in this world that is not what it is merely bycontrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself thatyou are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, thenyou cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, likeQueequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown ofyour head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the generalconsciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. Forthis reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with afire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. Forthe height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but theblankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outerair. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of anarctic crystal. We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, whenall at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when betweensheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, Ihave a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more toconcentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can everfeel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if,darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, thoughlight be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyesthen, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darknessinto the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminatedtwelveo'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion.Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps itwere best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; andbesides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from hisTomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strongrepugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see howelastic our stiff prejudices grow when once love comes to bendthem. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smokingby me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serenehousehold joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for thelandlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensedconfidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with areal friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, wenow passed the
Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly theregrew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by theflame of the new-lit lamp. Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savageaway to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of hisnative island; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to goon and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but illcomprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures,when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, nowenable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in themere skeleton I give.
Chapter 12. Biographical
Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to theWest and South. It is not down on any map; true places neverare. When a new-hatched savage running wild about his nativewoodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as ifhe were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul,lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than aspecimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; hisuncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts whowere the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent bloodin his veinsroyal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by thecannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth. A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg soughta passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her fullcomplement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King hisfather's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alonein his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew theship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side wasa coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered withmangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe,still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he satdown in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship wasgliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with onebackward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed upthe chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck,grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, thoughhacked in pieces. In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspendeda cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King,and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, andhis wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented,and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine youngsavage- this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin.They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him.But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreigncities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he mighthappily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen.For at bottom- so he told me- he was actuated by a profound desireto learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his peoplestill happier than they were; and more than that, still better thanthey were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced himthat even Christians could be both miserable and wicked; infinitelymore so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in old SagHarbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on
toNantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that placealso, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wickedworld in all meridians; I'll die a pagan. And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among theseChristians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish.Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home. By hints I asked him whether he did not propose going back, andhaving a coronation; since he might now consider his father deadand gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts. Heanswered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity,or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure andundefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by,he said, he would return,- as soon as he felt himself baptizedagain. For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sowhis wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a harpooneer ofhim, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching hisfuture movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his oldvocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, andinformed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being themost promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. Heat once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard thesame vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same messwith me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his,boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyouslyassented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he wasan experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be ofgreat usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of themysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as knownto merchant seamen. His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequegembraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out thelight, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and verysoon were sleeping.
Chapter 13. Wheelbarrow
Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to abarber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using,however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as theboarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship whichhad sprung up between me and Queequeg- especially as Peter Coffin'scock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed meconcerning the very person whom I now companied with. We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, includingmy own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock,away we went down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packetschooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the peoplestared; not at Queequeg so much- for they were used to seeingcannibals like him in their streets,- but at seeing him and me uponsuch confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going alongwheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping toadjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carriedsuch a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whalingships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in substance, hereplied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had aparticular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of assuredstuff, well
tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate withthe hearts of whales. In short, like many reapers and mowers, whogo into the farmer's meadows armed with their own scythes- thoughin no wise obliged to furnish them- even so, Queequeg, for his ownprivate reasons, preferred his own harpoon. Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funnystory about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in SagHarbor. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, inwhich to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seemignorant about the thing- though in truth he was entirely so,concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrowQueequegputs his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders thebarrow and marches up the wharf. "Why," said I, "Queequeg, youmight have known better than that, one would think. Didn't thepeople laugh?" Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island ofRokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrantwater of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like apunchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great centralornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certaingrand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander-from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at leastfor a sea captain- this commander was invited to the wedding feastof Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten.Well; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride'sbamboo cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned thepost of honor, placed himself over against the punchbowl, andbetween the High Priest and his majesty the King, Queequeg'sfather. Grace being said,- for those people have their grace aswell as we- though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at suchtimes look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary,copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts-Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by theimmemorial ceremony of the island; that is, dipping his consecratedand consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beveragecirculates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting theceremony, and thinking himself- being Captain of a ship- as havingplain precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King'sown house- the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in thepunch bowl;- taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. "Now,"said Queequeg, "what you tink now?- Didn't our people laugh?" At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board theschooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On oneside, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their icecoveredtrees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills andmountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and sideby side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safelymoored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters andcoopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch,all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one mostperilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a secondended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Suchis the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthlyeffort. Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; thelittle Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colthis snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!- how I spurned thatturnpike earth!- that common highway all over dented with the marksof slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimityof the sea which will permit no records.
At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reelwith me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed andpointed teeth. On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss didhomage to the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave beforethe Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarntingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canesin land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as westood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did notnotice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubberlikeassembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be socompanionable; as though a white man were anything more dignifiedthan a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkinsthere, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from theheart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these youngsaplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin'shour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savagecaught him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity andstrength, sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightlytapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with burstinglungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him,lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff. "Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running toward thatofficer; "Capting, Capting, here's the devil." "Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea,stalking up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that?Don't you know you might have killed that chap?" "What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. "He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there,"pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. "Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into anunearthly expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e;Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e bigwhale!" "Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e you, you cannibal,if you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind youreye." But it so happened just then, that it was high time for theCaptain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon themain-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom wasnow flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire afterpart of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled soroughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and toattempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flewfrom right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of awatch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping intosplinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of beingdone; those on deck rushed toward the bows, and stood eyeing theboom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In themidst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees,and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope,secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like alasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and atthe next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. Theschooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearingaway the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted fromthe side with a
long living arc of a leap. For three minutes ormore he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long armsstraight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawnyshoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand andglorious but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone down.Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now tookan instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matterswere, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he roseagain, one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging alifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin wasrestored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captainbegged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like abarnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to thinkthat he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and MagnanimousSocieties. He only asked for water- fresh water- something to wipethe brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe,and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those aroundhim, seemed to be saying to himself- "It's a mutual, joint-stockworld, in all meridians. We cannibals must help theseChristians."
Chapter 14. Nantucket
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so,after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a realcorner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away offshore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it- amere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as asubstitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell youthat they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally;that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyondseas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of woodin Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome;that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to getunder the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes anoasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wearquicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they areso shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and madean utter island of by the ocean, that to the very chairs and tablessmall clams will sometimes be found adhering as to the backs of seaturtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is noIllinois. Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this islandwas settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times aneagle swooped down upon the New England coast and carried off aninfant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw theirchild borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved tofollow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after aperilous passage they discovered the island, and there they foundan empty ivory casket,the poor little Indian's skeleton. What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach,should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabsand quahogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets formackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and capturedcod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea,explored this watery world; put an incessant belt
ofcircumnavigations round it; peeped in at Behring's Straits; and inall seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with themightiest animated mass that has survived the flood; most monstrousand most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothedwith such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panicsare more to be dreaded than his most fearless and maliciousassaults! And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits,issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered thewatery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them theAtlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powersdid Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba uponCanada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out theirblazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globeare the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperorsown empires; other seamen having but a right of way through it.Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floatingforts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea ashighwaymen the road. they but plunder other ships, other fragmentsof the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their livingfrom the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone residesand riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to itin ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.There is his home; there lies his business which a Noah's floodwould not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions inChina. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; hehides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb theAlps. For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to itat last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moonwould to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset foldsher wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall,the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and layshim to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walrusesand whales.
Chapter 15. Chowder
It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss camesnugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we couldattend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and abed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to hiscousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be theproprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, andmoreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, wasfamous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we couldnot possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But thedirections hc had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on ourstarboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, andthen keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner threepoints to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man wemet where the place was; these crooked directions of his very muchpuzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeginsisted that the yellow warehouse- our first point of departure-must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood PeterCoffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beatingabout a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peacefulinhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something whichthere was no mistaking. Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses'ears, swung from the crosstrees of an old top-mast, planted infront of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawedoff on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not alittle like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to suchimpressions at the time, but I could not help staring at thisgallows with
a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as Igazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one forQueequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin myInnkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staringat me in the whalemen's chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair ofprodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out obliquehints touching Tophet? I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckledwoman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch ofthe inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked muchlike an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man ina purple woollen shirt. "Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combingye!" "Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right. There's Mrs.Hussey." And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, butleaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all hisaffairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs.Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered usinto a little room, and seating us at a table spread with therelics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said"Clam or Cod?" "What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with muchpoliteness. "Clam or Cod?" she repeated. "A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs.Hussey?" says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception inthe winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?" But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in thepurple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming tohear nothing but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards anopen door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two,"disappeared. "Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make a supper forus both on one clam?" However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to beliethe apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smokingchowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweetfriends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcelybigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, andsalted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched withbutter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Ourappetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular,Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and thechowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with greatexpedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs.Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a littleexperiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word "cod"with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments thesavoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and ingood time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.
We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl,thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on thehead? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people?"But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where'syour harpoon?" Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which welldeserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders.Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder forsupper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through yourclothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs.Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and HoseaHussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin.There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at allaccount for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along thebeach among some fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cowfeeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with eachfoot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assureye. Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs.Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg wasabout to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm,and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers."Why not? said I; "every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon- butwhy not?" "Because it's dangerous," says she. "Ever since youngStiggs coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gonefour years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was founddead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; eversince then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons intheir rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for she had learned hisname), "I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you tillmorning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast,men?" "Both," says I; "and let's have a couple of smoked herring byway of variety."
Chapter 16. The Ship
In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surpriseand no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that hehad been diligently consulting Yojo- the name of his black littlegod- and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and stronglyinsisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together amongthe whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft;instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selectionof the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposedbefriending us; and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon avessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infalliblylight upon, for all the world as though it had turned out bychance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for thepresent irrespective of Queequeg. I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequegplaced great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment andsurprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerableesteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enoughupon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolentdesigns. Now, this plan of Queequeg's or rather Yojo's, touching theselection of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had nota little relied upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whalerbest fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all myremonstrances produced no effect upon
Queequeg, I was obliged toacquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business witha determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quicklysettle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leavingQueequeg shut up with in our little bedroom- for it seemed that itwas some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation,and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that day; how it was I nevercould find out, for, though I applied myself to it several times, Inever could master his liturgies and XXXIX Articles- leavingQueequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warminghimself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out amongthe shipping. After much prolonged sauntering, and many randominquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years'voyages- The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-dam, Ido not know the origin of; Tit-bit is obvious; Pequod you will nodoubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of MassachusettsIndians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed aboutthe Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally,going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and thendecided that this was the very ship for us. You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught Iknow;- square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-boxgalliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw sucha rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship ofthe old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashionedclaw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weatherstained inthe typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull'scomplexion was darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alikefought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Hermasts- cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original oneswere lost overboard in a gale- her masts stood stiffly up like thespines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks wereworn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone inCanterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her oldantiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining tothe wild business that for more than half a century she hadfollowed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before hecommanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, andone of the principal owners of the Pequod,- this old Peleg, duringthe term of his chief-mateship, had built upon her originalgrotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both ofmaterial and device, unmatched by anything except it beThorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She was apparelled likeany barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants ofpolished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft,tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. Allround, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like onecontinuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale,inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendonsto. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, butdeftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstilewheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and thattiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lowerjaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered that tiller ina tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steedby clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy!All noble things are touched with that. Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one havingauthority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for thevoyage, at first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind themain-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It wasof a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long,huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highestpart of the jaws of the right-whale.
Planted with their broad endson the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutuallysloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tuftedpoint, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like thetop-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangularopening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insidercommanded a complete view forward. And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found onewho by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon,and the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from theburden of command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair,wriggling all over with curious carving; and the bottom of whichwas formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff ofwhich the wigwam was constructed. There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about theappearance of the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, likemost old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut inthe Quaker style; only there was a fine and almost microscopicnet-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round eyes, whichmust have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales,and always looking to windward;- for this causes the muscles aboutthe eyes to become pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are veryeffectual in a scowl. "Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, advancing to thedoor of the tent. "Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou wantof him?" he demanded. "I was thinking of shipping." "Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer- ever beenin a stove boat?" "No, Sir, I never have." "Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say- eh? "Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've beenseveral voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-" "Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost seethat leg?- I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thoutalkest of the merchant service to me again. Marchant serviceindeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having servedin those marchant ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want togo a whaling, eh?- it looks a little suspicious, don't it, eh?-Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?- Didst not rob thy last Captain,didst thou?- Dost not think of murdering the officers when thougettest to sea?" I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under themask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as aninsulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insularprejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless theyhailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard. "But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before Ithink of shipping ye."
"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see theworld." "Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on CaptainAhab?" "Who is Captain Ahab, sir?" "Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of thisship." "I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captainhimself." "Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg- that's who ye are speakingto, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see thePequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs,including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was goingto say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest yedo, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourselfto it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, andthou wilt find that he has only one leg." "What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?" "Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured,chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that everchipped a boat!- ah, ah!" I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a littletouched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but saidas calmly as I could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir;but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in thatparticular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as much fromthe simple fact of the accident." "Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see;thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now;sure of that?" "Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been fourvoyages in the merchant-" "Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchantservice- don't aggravate me- I won't have it. But let us understandeach other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do yeyet feel inclined for it?" "I do, sir." "Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a livewhale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!" "I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so;not to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be thefact." "Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, tofind out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go inorder to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought
so.Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over theweather bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye seethere." For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request,not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or inearnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl,Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceivedthat the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was nowobliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect wasunlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not theslightest variety that I could see. "Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "whatdid ye see?" "Not much," I replied- "nothing but water; considerable horizonthough, and there's a squall coming up, I think." "Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wishto go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see theworld where you stand?" I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would;and the Pequod was as good a ship as any- I thought the best- andall this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, heexpressed his willingness to ship me. "And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added-"come along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck intothe cabin. Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon andsurprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who alongwith Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; theother shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being heldby a crowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, andchancery wards; each owning about the value of a timber head, or afoot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucketinvest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you doyours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest. Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, wasa Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect;and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommonmeasure peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalouslymodified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some ofthese same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors andwhale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with avengeance. So that there are instances among them of men, who, named withScripture names- a singularly common fashion on the island- and inchildhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou ofthe Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundlessadventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with theseunoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of
character, notunworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. Andwhen these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force,with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by thestillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotestwaters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north,been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving allnature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virginvoluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with somehelp from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous loftylanguage- that man makes one in a whole nation's census- a mightypageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at alldetract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth orother circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overrulingmorbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragicallygreat are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, Oyoung ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet wehave not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and stilla man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from anotherphase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retiredwhaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg- who cared not a rush for whatare called serious things, and indeed deemed those selfsameserious things the veriest of all trifles- Captain Bildad had notonly been originally educated according to the strictest sect ofNantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and thesight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn- allthat had not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had notso much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all thisimmutableness, was there some lack of common consistency aboutworthy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples,to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitablyinvaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe to humanbloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tunsupon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative eveningof his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in thereminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern himmuch, and very probably he had long since come to the sage andsensible conclusion that a man's religion is one thing, and thispractical world quite another. This world pays dividends. Risingfrom a little cabin boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to aharpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becomingboat-header, chief mate, and captain, and finally a shipowner;Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career bywholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, anddedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of hiswell-earned income. Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being anincorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hardtask-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems acurious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, hiscrew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to thehospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especiallyfor a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say theleast. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they said; butsomehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hardwork out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have hisdrab-colored eye intently looking at you, made you feel completelynervous, till you could clutch something- a hammer or amarrling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other,never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. Hisown person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character.On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluousbeard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like that wornnap of his broad-brimmed hat.
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom whenI followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between thedecks was small; and there, bolt upright, sat old Bildad, whoalways sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat-tails.His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stifflycrossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; andspectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderousvolume. "Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye havebeen studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, tomy certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?" As if long habituated to such profane talk from his oldshipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietlylooked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towardsPeleg. "He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, "he wants toship." "Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round tome. "I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. "What do ye think of him, Bildad?" said Peleg. "He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spellingaway at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially asPeleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But Isaid nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open achest, and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and inkbefore him, and seated himself at a little table. I began to thinkit was high time to settle with myself at what terms I would bewilling to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that in thewhaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including thecaptain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, andthat these lays were proportioned to the degree of importancepertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company. I wasalso aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would notbe very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, couldsteer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt thatfrom all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay-that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage,whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th laywas what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better thannothing; and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay forthe clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my threeyears' beef and board, for which I would not have to pay onestiver. It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate aprincely fortune- and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I amone of those who never take on about princely fortunes, and amquite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while Iam putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon thewhole, I thought the 275th lay would be about the fair thing, butwould not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th,considering I was of a broadshouldered make.
But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustfulabout receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, Ihad heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable oldcrony Bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of thePequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scatteredowners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs tothese two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad mighthave a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I nowfound him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin,and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Pelegwas vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, tomy no small surprise, considering that he was such an interestedparty in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went onmumbling to himself out of his book, "Lay not up for yourselvestreasures upon earth, where moth-" "Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, whatlay shall we give this young man?" "Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the sevenhundred and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?- 'wheremoth and rust do corrupt, but lay-'" Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred andseventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, forone, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust docorrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and thoughfrom the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive alandsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that thoughseven hundred and seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, whenyou come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that theseven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a forthing is a good dealless than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so Ithought at the time. "Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, "thou dost not wantto swindle this young man! he must have more than that." "Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, withoutlifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling- "for where yourtreasure is, there will your heart be also." "I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," saidPeleg, "do ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, Isay." Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards himsaid, "Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou mustconsider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this shipwidows and orphans, many of them- and that if we too abundantlyreward the labors of this young man, we may be taking the breadfrom those widows and those orphans. The seven hundred andseventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg." "Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering aboutthe cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advicein these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug aboutthat would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that eversailed round Cape Horn."
"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may bedrawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but asthou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fearlest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sinkthee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg." "Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all naturalbearing, ye insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any humancreature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, saythat again to me, and start my soulbolts, but I'll- I'll- yes, I'llswallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of thecabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden gun- a straightwake with ye!" As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with amarvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eludedhim. Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal andresponsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give upall idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned andtemporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egressto Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish frombefore the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he satdown again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not theslightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used toimpenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off hisrage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, satdown like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervouslyagitated. "Whew!" he whistled at last- "the squall's gone off toleeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening alance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs thegrindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man,Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, forthe three hundredth lay." "Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants toship too- shall I bring him down to-morrow?" "To be sure," said Peleg. "Fetch him along, and we'll look athim." "What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad, glancing up from theBook in which he had again been burying himself. "Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg. "Has heever whaled it any?" turning to me. "Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg." "Well, bring him along then." And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting butthat I had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was theidentical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and meround the Cape.
But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that theCaptain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though,indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out,and receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himselfvisible by arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyagesare so prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceedinglybrief, that if the captain have family, or any absorbingconcernment of that sort, he does not trouble himself much abouthis ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till all is readyfor sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at him beforeirrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back Iaccosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to befound. "And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right enough;thou art shipped." "Yes, but I should like to see him." "But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't knowexactly what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside thehouse; a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain'tsick; but no, he isn't well either. Any how, young man, he won'talways see me, so I don't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man,Captain Ahab- so some think- but a good one. Oh, thou'lt like himwell enough; no fear, no fear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man,Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then youmay well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab's above the common;Ahab's been in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals; been usedto deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance inmightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenestand surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad;no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; he's Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old,thou knowest, was a crowned king!" "And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs,did they not lick his blood?" "Come hither to me- hither, hither," said Peleg, with asignificance in his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad;never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. CaptainAhab did not name himself .'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of hiscrazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old.And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that the name wouldsomehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her maytell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a lie. I know CaptainAhab well; I've sailed with him as mate years ago; know what he is-a good man- not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing goodman- something like me- only there's a good deal more of him. Aye,aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on thepassage home he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but itwas the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that broughtthat about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since helost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kindof moodydesperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will allpass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, youngman, it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughingbad one. So good-bye to thee- and wrong not Captain Ahab, becausehe happens to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife-not three voyages wedded- a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; bythat sweet girl that old man had a child: hold ye then there can beany utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken,blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!"
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had beenincidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with acertain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow,at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for Idon't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet Ialso felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe, which Icannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know what itwas. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him;though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, soimperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts wereat length carried in other directions, so that for the present darkAhab slipped my mind.
Chapter 17. The Ramadan
As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was tocontinue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towardsnight-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody'sreligious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not findit in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of antsworshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain partsof our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedentedin other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landedproprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yetowned and rented in his name. I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable inthese things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to othermortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceitson these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertainingthe most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;- but what ofthat? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; heseemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing withhim would not avail; let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on usall- Presbyterians and Pagans alike- for we are all somehowdreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending. Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performancesand rituals must be over, I went to his room and knocked at thedoor; but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastenedinside. "Queequeg," said I softly through the key-hole:- allsilent. "I say, Queequeg! why don't you speak? It's I- Ishmael."But all remained still as before. I began to grow alarmed. I hadallowed him such abundant time; I thought he might have had anapoplectic fit. I looked through the keyhole; but the door openinginto an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect was but acrooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the foot-boardof the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I wassurprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft ofQueequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous hadtaken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That's strange,thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and heseldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be insidehere, and no possible mistake. "Queequeg!- Queequeg!"- all still. Something must have happened.Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornlyresisted. Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions tothe first person I met- the chamber-maid. "La! la!" she cried, "Ithought something must the matter. I went to make the bed afterbreakfast, and the door was locked; and not a mouse to be heard;and it's been just so silent ever since. But I thought, may be, youhad both gone off and
locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La!la, ma'am!- Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy!"- and withthese cries she ran towards the kitchen, I following. Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and avinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from theoccupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her littleblack boy meantime. "Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it? Run for God's sake, andfetch something to pry open the door- the axe!- the axe! he's had astroke; depend upon it!"- and so saying I was unmethodicallyrushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposedthe mustardpot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of hercountenance. "What's the matter with you, young man?" "Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one,while I pry it open!" "Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down thevinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free; "look here; are youtalking about prying open any of my doors?"- and with that sheseized my arm. "What's the matter with you? What's the matter withyou, shipmate?" In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her tounderstand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruetto one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant; thenexclaimed- "No! I haven't seen it since I put it there." Running toa little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in,and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing. "He'skilled himself," she cried. "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done overagain there goes another counterpane- God pity his poor mother!- itwill be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? Where'sthat girl?- there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell himto paint me a sign, with- "no suicides permitted here, and nosmoking in the parlor;"- might as well kill both birds at once.Kill? The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there?You, young man, avast there!" And running after me, she caught me as I was again trying toforce open the door. "I won't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for thelocksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast!" puttingher hand in her side pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess;let's see." And with that, she turned it in the lock; but alas!Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. "Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entrya little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, againvowing I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her,and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against themark. With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knobslamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; andthere, good heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool on hishams, and holding Yojo on top of his head. He looked neither oneway nor the other way but sat like a carved image with scarce asign of active life.
"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's thematter with you?" "He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said thelandlady. But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almostfelt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for itwas almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturallyconstrained; especially, as in all probability he had been sittingso for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his regularmeals. "Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's alive at all events; so leave us,if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself." Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail uponQueequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all hecould do- for all my polite arts and blandishments- he would notmove a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor noticemy presence in the slightest way. I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of hisRamadan; do they fast on their hams that way in his native land. Itmust be so; yes, it's a part of his creed, I suppose; well, then,let him rest; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't lastfor ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and Idon't believe it's very punctual then. I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening tothe long stories of some sailors who had just come from aplum-pudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a shortwhaling-voyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of theline, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after listening to theseplum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went up stairs to goto bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainlyhave brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there he wasjust where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began togrow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane tobe sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a coldroom, holding a piece of wood on his head. "For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get upand have some supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself,Queequeg." But not a word did he reply. Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and tosleep; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. Butprevious to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threwit over him, as it promised to be a very cold night; and he hadnothing but his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all Iwould, I could not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out thecandle; and the mere thought of Queequeg- not four feet off-sitting there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold anddark; this made me really wretched. Think of it; sleeping all nightin the same room with a wide awake pagan on his hams in thisdreary, unaccountable Ramadan! But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more tillbreak of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squattedQueequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soonas the first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, withstiff grating joints, but with a
cheerful look; limped towards mewhere I lay; pressed his forehead again against mine; and said hisRamadan was over. Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person'sreligion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not killor insult any other person, because that other person don't believeit also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when itis a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth ofours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time totake that individual aside and argue the point with him. And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I, "getinto bed now, and lie and listen to me." I then went on, beginningwith the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and comingdown to the various religions of the present time, during whichtime I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, andprolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were starknonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, inshort, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him,too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible andsagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see himnow so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his.Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spiritcaves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily behalf-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionistscherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In oneword, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea firstborn on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuatedthrough the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled withdyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could takeit in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after agreat feast given by his father the king on the gaining of a greatbattle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about twoo'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that veryevening. "No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "that will do;" for Iknew the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen asailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it wasthe custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecueall the slain in the yard or garden of the victor; and then, one byone, they were placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnishedround like a pilau, with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with someparsley in their mouths, were sent round with the victor'scompliments to all his friends, just as though these presents wereso many Christmas turkeys. After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion mademuch impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, hesomehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unlessconsidered from his own point of view; and, in the second place, hedid not more than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply asI would; and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal moreabout the true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort ofcondescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it agreat pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelesslylost to evangelical pagan piety.
At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiouslyhearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landladyshould not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we salliedout to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teethwith halibut bones.
Chapter 18. His Mark
As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship,Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voiceloudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected myfriend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let nocannibals on board that craft, unless they previously producedtheir papers. "What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumpingon the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. "I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers." "Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking hishead from behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show thathe's converted. Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg,"art thou at present in communion with any Christian church?" "Why," said I, "he's a member of the first CongregationalChurch." Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing inNantucket ships at last come to be converted into the churches. "First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! thatworships in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and sosaying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his greatyellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully,came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, tooka good long look at Queequeg. "How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me;"not very long, I rather guess, young man." "No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either, orit would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face." "Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regularmember of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him goingthere, and I pass it every Lord's day." "I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,"said I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of theFirst Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequegis." "Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me-explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean?answer me." Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, "I mean, sir, thesame ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Pelegthere, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's
son andsoul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation ofthis whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some ofus cherish some crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; inthat we all join hands." "Splice, thou mean'st splice hands," cried Peleg, drawingnearer. "Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead ofa fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon. DeaconDeuteronomy- why Father Mapple himself couldn't beat it, and he'sreckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard: never mind about thepapers. I say, tell Quohog there- what's that you call him? tellQuohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harpoon he's gotthere! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it about right. Isay, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in thehead of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?" Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumpedupon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of thewhale-boats hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee,and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him?well, spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim atit, he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, cleanacross the ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out ofsight. "Now," said Queequeg, quietly, hauling in the line, "spos-ee himwhale-e eye; why, dad whale dead." "Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at theclose vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards thecabin gangway. "Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship'spapers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of ourboats. Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that'smore than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket." So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg wassoon enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myselfbelonged. When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everythingready for signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog theredon't know how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dostthou sign thy name or make thy mark? But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice beforetaken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; buttaking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place,an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooedupon his arm; so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistaketouching his appellative, it stood something like this:Quohog.his X mark. Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastlyeyeing Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in thehuge pockets of his broadskirted drab coat took out a bundle oftracts, and selecting one entitled "The Latter Day Coming; or NoTime to Lose," placed it in Queequeg's hands, and then graspingthem and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes,and said, "Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am partowner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all itscrew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear,I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn theidol Bell, and
the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come;mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of thefiery pit!" Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language,heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. "Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling ourharpooneer," Peleg. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers- ittakes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aintpretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravestboat-header out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined themeeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about hisplaguy soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, forfear of after-claps, in case he got stove and went to DavyJones." "Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, "thouthyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest,Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thouprate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg.Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboardin that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate withCaptain Ahab, did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgmentthen?" "Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across thecabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,- "hearhim, all of ye. Think of that! When every moment we thought theship would sink! Death and the Judgment then? What? With all threemasts making such an everlasting thundering against the side; andevery sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and theJudgment then? No! no time to think about death then. Life was whatCaptain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands howto rig jury-masts how to get into the nearest port; that was what Iwas thinking of." Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck,where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlookingsome sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now andthen he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine,which otherwise might have been wasted.
Chapter 19. The Prophet
"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?" Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were saunteringfrom the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts,when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausingbefore us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel inquestion. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket andpatched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck.A confluent smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face,and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when therushing waters have been dried up. "Have ye shipped in her?" he repeated.
"You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose," said I, trying to gain alittle more time for an uninterrupted look at him. "Aye, the Pequod- that ship there," he said, drawing back hiswhole arm and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him-, withthe fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at theobject. "Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles." "Anything down there about your souls?" "About what?" "Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matterthough, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,- good luck to 'em;and they are all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifthwheel to a wagon." "What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I. "He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies ofthat sort in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger, placing anervous emphasis upon the word he. "Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose fromsomewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don'tknow." "Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true- ye hav'n't seen OldThunder yet, have ye?" "Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insaneearnestness of his manner. "Captain Ahab." "What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?" "Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name.Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?" "No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, andwill be all right again before long." "All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with asolemnly derisive sort of laugh. "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is allright, then this left arm of mine will be all right; notbefore." "What do you know about him?" "What did they tell you about him? Say that!" "They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heardthat he's a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew."
"That's true, that's true- yes, both true enough. But you mustjump when he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go- that'sthe word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing thathappened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead forthree days and nights; nothing about that deadly skrimmage with theSpaniard afore the altar in Santa?- heard nothing about that, eh?Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing abouthis losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn'tye hear a word about them matters and something more, eh? No, Idon't think ye did; how could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket,I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg, andhow he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh, yes,that every one knows a'most- I mean they know he's only one leg;and that a parmacetti took the other off." "My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about,I don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that youmust be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking ofCaptain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you,that I know all about the loss of his leg." "All about it, eh- sure you do? all? "Pretty sure." With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, thebeggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie;then starting a little, turned and said:- "Ye've shipped, have ye?Names down on the papers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed; andwhat's to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won't be, afterall. Any how, it's all fixed and arranged already; and some sailorsor other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any othermen, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffableheavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped ye." "Look here, friend," said I, "if you have anything important totell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us,you are mistaken in your game; that's all I have to say." "And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up thatway; you are just the man for himthe likes of ye. Morning to ye,shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concludednot to make one of 'em." "Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way- you can't foolus. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if hehad a great secret in him." "Morning to ye, shipmates, morning." "Morning it is," said I. "Come along, Queequeg, let's leave thiscrazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?" "Elijah." Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, aftereach other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed thathe was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we
had notgone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner,and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijahfollowing us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of himstruck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind,but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the strangerwould turn the same corner that we did. He did; and then it seemedto me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could not forthe life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with hisambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, nowbegat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions,and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg hehad lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver calabash; and whatCaptain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the dayprevious; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage wehad bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowythings. I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah wasreally dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way withQueequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijahpassed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and oncemore, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart,a humbug.
Chapter 20. All Astir
A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard thePequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sailswere coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; inshort, everything betokened that the ship's preparations werehurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, butsat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildaddid all the purchasing and providing at the stores; and the menemployed in the hold and on the rigging were working till longafter night-fall. On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word wasgiven at all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, thattheir chests must be on board before night, for there was notelling how soon the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I gotdown our traps, resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last.But it seems they always give very long notice in these cases, andthe ship did not sail for several days. But no wonder; there was agood deal to be done, and there is no telling how many things to bethought of, before the Pequod was fully equipped. Every one knows what a multitude of things- beds, sauce-pans,knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, andwhat not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Justso with whaling, which necessitates a three-years' housekeepingupon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors,bakers, and bankers. And though this also holds true of merchantvessels, yet not by any means to the same extent as with whalemen.For besides the great length of the whaling voyage, the numerousarticles peculiar to the prosecution of the fishery, and theimpossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors usuallyfrequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whalingvessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, andespecially to the destruction and loss of the very things uponwhich the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spareboats, spare spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spareeverythings, almost, but a spare Captain and duplicate ship.
At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storageof the Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef,bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as beforehinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carryingon board of divers odds and ends of things, both large andsmall. Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was CaptainBildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined andindefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemedresolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be foundwanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At onetime she would come on board with a jar of pickles for thesteward's pantry; another time with a bunch of quills for the chiefmate's desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a roll offlannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did anywoman better deserve her name, which was Charity- Aunt Charity, aseverybody called her. And like a sister of charity did thischaritable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready toturn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety,comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which herbeloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herselfowned a score or two of wellsaved dollars. But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeresscoming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle inone hand, and still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor wasBildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, hecarried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and atevery fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article uponthe paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of hiswhalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up tothe riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring backinto his wigwam. During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visitedthe craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was,and when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questionsthey would answer, that he was getting better and better, and wasexpected aboard every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg andBildad, could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel forthe voyage. If I had been downright honest with myself, I wouldhave seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy beingcommitted this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyeson the man who was to be absolute dictator of it, so soon as theship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects anywrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in thematter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even fromhimself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, andtried to think nothing. At last it was given out that some time next day the ship wouldcertainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very earlystart.
Chapter 21. Going Aboard
It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn,when we drew nigh the wharf. "There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,"said I to Queequeg, "it can't be shadow; she's off by sunrise, Iguess; come on!"
"Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time comingclose behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and theninsinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, inthe uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. Itwas Elijah. "Going aboard?" "Hands off, will you," said I. "Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, "go 'way!" "Aint going aboard, then?" "Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is that of yours? Doyou know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a littleimpertinent?" "No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly andwonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the mostunaccountable glances. "Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me bywithdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, andwould prefer not to be detained." "Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?" "He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, "come on." "Holloa!" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we hadremoved a few paces. "Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, come on." But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand onmy shoulder, said- "Did ye see anything looking like men goingtowards that ship a while ago?" Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered,saying, "Yes, I thought I did see four or five men; but it was toodim to be sure." "Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning to ye." Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us;and touching my shoulder again, said, "See if you can find 'em now,will ye? "Find who?" "Morning to ye! morning to ye!" he rejoined, again moving off."Oh! I was going to warn ye against- but never mind, never mind-it's all one, all in the family too;- sharp frost this morning,ain't it? Good-bye to ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess;unless it's before the
Grand Jury." And with these cracked words hefinally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no smallwonderment at his frantic impudence. At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything inprofound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was lockedwithin; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils ofrigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of thescuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an oldrigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown atwhole length upon two chests, his face downwards and inclosed inhis folded arms. The profoundest slumber slept upon him. "Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?"said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, whenon the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alludedto; hence I would have thought myself to have been opticallydeceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah's otherwiseinexplicable question. But I beat the thing down; and again markingthe sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had bestsit up with the body; telling him to establish himself accordingly.He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though feeling if itwas soft enough; and then, without more ado, sat quietly downthere. "Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there," said I. "Oh; perry dood seat," said Queequeg, "my country way; won'thurt him face." "Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevolent countenancethen; but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off,Queequeg, you are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Getoff, Queequeg! Look, he'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don'twake." Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper,and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipepassing over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, uponquestioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me tounderstand that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees andsofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally,were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders forottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, youhad only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them aroundin the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on anexcursion; much better than those garden-chairs which areconvertible into walking sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling hisattendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under aspreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received thetomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over thesleeper's head. "What's that for, Queequeg?" "Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy! He was going on with some wild reminiscences about histomahawk-pipe which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brainedhis foes and soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted tothe
sleeping rigger. The strong vapor now completely filling thecontracted hole, it began to tell upon him. He breathed with a sortof muffledness; then seemed troubled in the nose; then revolvedover once or twice; then sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Holloa!" he breathed at last, "who be ye smokers?" "Shipped men," answered I, "when does she sail?" "Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. TheCaptain came aboard last night." "What Captain?- Ahab?" "Who but him indeed?" I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab,when we heard a noise on deck. "Holloa! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. "He's a livelychief mate that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I mustturn to." And so saying he went on deck, and we followed. It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twosand threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates wereactively engaged; and several of the shore people were busy inbringing various last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahabremained invisibly enshrined within his cabin.
Chapter 22. Merry Christmas
At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship'sriggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf,and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whaleboat,with her last gift- a nightcap for Stubb, the second mate, herbrother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward- after all this,the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, andturning to the chief mate, Peleg said: "Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? CaptainAhab is all ready- just spoke to him- nothing more to be got fromshore, eh? Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft hereblast'em!" "No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg," saidBildad, "but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do ourbidding." How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage,Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand onthe quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders atsea, as well as to all appearances in port. And, as for CaptainAhab, no sign of him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was inthe cabin. But then, the idea was, that his presence was by nomeans necessary in getting the ship under weigh, and steering herwell out to sea. Indeed, as that was not at all his properbusiness, but the pilot's; and as he was not yet completelyrecoveredso they said- therefore, Captain Ahab stayed below. Andall this seemed natural enough;
especially as in the merchantservice many captains never show themselves on deck for aconsiderable time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over thecabin table, having a farewell merry-making with their shorefriends, before they quit the ship for good with the pilot. But there was not much chance to think over the matter, forCaptain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of thetalking and commanding, and not Bildad. "Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailorslingered at the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive aft." "Strike the tent there!"- was the next order. As I hintedbefore, this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port;and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike thetent was well known to be the next thing to heaving up theanchor. "Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!- jump!"- was the nextcommand, and the crew sprang for the handspikes. Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied bythe pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who,with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other officers, was oneof the licensed pilots of the port- he being suspected to have gothimself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee toall the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any othercraft- Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in lookingover the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singingwhat seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at thewindlass, who roared forth some sort of chorus about the girls inBooble Alley, with hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three daysprevious, Bildad had told them that no profane songs would beallowed on board the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh;and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts ineach seaman's berth. Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Pelegripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almostthought he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up;involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do thesame, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyagewith such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however,with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found somesalvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay; whenI felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, washorrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the art ofwithdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my firstkick. "Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?" he roared."Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don'tye spring, I say, all of ye- spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap withthe red whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou greenpants. Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!" And sosaying, he moved along the windlass, here and there using his legvery freely, while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with hispsalmody. Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking somethingto-day. At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off weglided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northernday merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon thewintry
ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polishedarmor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in themoonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant,vast curving icicles depended from the bows. Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever andanon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent theshivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordagerang, his steady notes were heard,"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green. So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between." Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then.They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winternight in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetterjacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant havenin store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grassshot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains atmidsummer. At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots wereneeded no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us beganranging alongside. It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad wereaffected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath todepart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so longand perilous a voyage- beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in whichsome thousands of his hardearned dollars were invested; a ship, inwhich an old shipmate sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he,once more starting to encounter all the terrors of the pitilessjaw; loath to say good-bye to a thing so every way brimful of everyinterest to him,- poor old Bildad lingered long; paced the deckwith anxious strides; ran down into the cabin to speak anotherfarewell word there; again came on deck, and looked to windward;looked towards the wide and endless waters, only bound by thefar-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards the land; lookedaloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere and nowhere; and atlast, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsivelygrasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for amoment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say,"Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can." As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; butfor all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, whenthe lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little run fromthe cabin to deck- now a word below, and now a word with Starbuck,the chief mate. But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort oflook about him,- "Captain Bildad- come, old shipmate, we must go.Back the mainyard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come closealongside, now! Careful, careful!- come, Bildad, boy- say yourlast. Luck to ye, Starbuck- luck to ye, Mr. Stubb- luck to ye, Mr.Flask- good-bye and good luck to ye all- and this day three yearsI'll have a hot supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah andaway!" "God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men," murmuredold Bildad, almost incoherently. "I hope ye'll have fine weathernow, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye- a pleasantsun is all he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropicvoyage ye go.
Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave theboats needlessly, ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raisedfull three per cent within the year. Don't forget your prayers,either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don't waste the sparestaves. Oh! the sail-needles are in the green locker. Don't whaleit too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chanceeither, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an eye to themolasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. If yetouch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye,good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr.Starbuck; it'll spoil. Be careful with the buttertwenty cents thepound it was, and mind ye, if--" "Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,- away!" and withthat, Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into theboat. Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blewbetween; a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildlyrolled; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plungedlike fate into the lone Atlantic.
Chapter 23. The Lee Shore
Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall,newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust hervindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I seestanding at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic aweand fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from afour years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off againfor still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching tohis feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deepmemories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stonelessgrave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as withthe storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leewardland. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in theport is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets,friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, theport, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly allhospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, wouldmake her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowdsall sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds thatfain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea'slandlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril;her only friend her bitterest foe! Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of thatmortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is butthe intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence ofher sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire tocast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless,indefinite as God- so better is it to perish in that howlinginfinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if thatwere safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl toland! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Takeheart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up fromthe spray of thy ocean-perishing- straight up, leaps thyapotheosis!
Chapter 24. The Advocate
As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business ofwhaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to beregarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputablepursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen,of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales. In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous toestablish the fact, that among people at large, the business ofwhaling is not accounted on a level with what are called theliberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into anymiscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advancethe general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the companyas a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation of the naval officers heshould append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to hisvisting card, such a procedure would be deemed preeminentlypresuming and ridiculous. Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring uswhalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amountsto a butchering sort of business; and that when actively engagedtherein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butcherswe are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of thebloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the worldinvariably delights to honor. And as for the matter of the allegeduncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated intocertain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, and which, uponthe whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship at leastamong the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even grantingthe charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery decksof a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of thosebattle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in allladies' plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances thepopular conceit of the soldier's profession; let me assure ye thatmany a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, wouldquickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale's vast tail,fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are thecomprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrorsand wonders of God! But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does itunwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-aboundingadoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burnround the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory! But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sortsof scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of theirwhaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own personalexpense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite tothat town some score or two of families from our own island ofNantucket? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay toher whalemen in bounties upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, howcomes it that we whalemen of America now outnumber all the rest ofthe banded whalemen in the world; sail a navy of upwards of sevenhundred vessels; manned by eighteen thousand men; yearly consuming4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, at the time of sailing,$20,000,000! and every year importing into our harbors a wellreaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be notsomething puissant in whaling?
But this is not the half; look again. I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, forhis life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within thelast sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broadworld, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business ofwhaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkablein themselves, and so continuously momentous in their sequentialissues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother,who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be ahopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a handfulsuffice. For many years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer inferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. Shehas explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where noCooke or Vancouver had ever sailed. If American and Europeanmen-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let themfire salutes to the honor and glory of the whale-ship, whichoriginally showed them the way, and first interpreted between themand the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes ofExploring Expeditions, your Cookes, your Krusensterns; but I saythat scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket,that were as great, and greater, than your Cooke and yourKrusenstern. For in their succorless empty-handedness, they, in theheathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded,javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cookewith all his marines and muskets would not have willingly dared.All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages,those things were but the life-time commonplaces of our heroicNantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates threechapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in theship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world! Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce butcolonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried onbetween Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinceson the Pacific coast. It was the whalemen who first broke throughthe jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies;and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how fromthose whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili,and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment ofthe eternal democracy in those parts. That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia,was given to the enlightened world by whaleman. After its firstblunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships, long shunnedthose shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touchedthere. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony.Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, theemigrants were several times saved from starvation by thebenevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor intheir waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the sametruth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared theway for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carriedthe primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If thatdouble-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is thewhale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she ison the threshold. But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whalinghas no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then amI ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you witha split helmet every time. The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famouschronicler, you will say.
The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler?Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job?And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, butno less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royalpen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter ofthose times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament?Who, but Edmund Burke! True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; theyhave no good blood in their veins. No good blood in their veins? They have something better thanroyal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was MaryMorrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the oldsettlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgersand harpooneers- all kith and kin to noble Benjamin- this daydarting the barbed iron from one side of the world to theother. Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is notrespectable. Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old Englishstatutory law, the whale is declared "a royal fish." Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured inany grand imposing way. The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of themighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering theworld's capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from theSyrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballedprocession.* * See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. Grant it, since you cite it; but say what you will, there is noreal dignity in whaling. No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the veryheavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the south! No more!Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off toQueequeg! No more! I know a man that, in his lifetime has takenthree hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorablethan that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as manywalled towns. And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yetundiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any realrepute in that small but high hushed world which I might not beunreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything uponthe whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone;if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, findany precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe allthe honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my YaleCollege and my Harvard.
Chapter 25. Postscript
In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naughtbut substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, anadvocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise,which might tell eloquently upon his cause- such an advocate, wouldhe not be blame-worthy? It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them fortheir functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, socalled, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,precisely- who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head issolemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can itbe, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interiorrun well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because incommon life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow whoanoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth,a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally, that man hasprobably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, hecan't amount to much in his totality. But the only thing to be considered here is this- what kind ofoil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, normacassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, norcod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil inits unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kingsand queens with coronation stuff!
Chapter 26. Knights and Squires
The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native ofNantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, andthough born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hotlatitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transportedto the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. Hemust have been born in some time of general drought and famine, orupon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Onlysome thirty and summers had he seen; those summers had dried up allhis physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak,seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than itseemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely thecondensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite thecontrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closelywrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, likea revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure forlong ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polarsnow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interiorvitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into hiseves, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of thosethousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. Astaid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a tellingpantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for allhis hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities inhim which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh tooverbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman,and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild wateryloneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him tosuperstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in someorganization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligencethan from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments werehis. And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul,much more
did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wifeand child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggednessof his nature, and open him still further to those latentinfluences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush ofdare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilousvicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," saidStarbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed tomean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was thatwhich arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, butthat an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than acoward. "Aye, aye," said Stubb, the second mate, "Starbuck, there, is ascareful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery." But weshall ere long see what that word "careful" precisely means whenused by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter. Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not asentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at handupon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought,perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of thegreat staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, andnot to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for loweringfor whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fishthat too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, Iam here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, andnot to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men hadbeen so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father's?Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of hisbrother? With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to acertain superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of thisStarbuck, which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeedhave been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a manso organized, and with such terrible experiences and remembrancesas he had; it was not in nature that these things should fail inlatently engendering an element in him, which, under suitablecircumstances, would break out from its confinement, and burn allhis courage up. And brave as he might be, it was that sort ofbravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, whilegenerally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, orwhales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yetcannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritualterrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow ofan enraged and mighty man. But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, thecomplete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might Ihave the heart to write it; but it is a thing most sorrowful, nayshocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men may seemdetestable as joint stockcompanies and nations; knaves, fools, andmurderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but,man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand andglowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all hisfellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculatemanliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that itremains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleedswith keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruinedman. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, completelystifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But thisaugust dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes,but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thoushalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives aspike; that democratic dignity
which, on all hands, radiateswithout end from God; Himself! The great God absolute! The centreand circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divineequality! If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, Ishall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave aroundthem tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the mostabased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exaltedmounts; if I shall touch that workman's arm with some ethereallight; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun;then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spiritof Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity overall my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! whodidst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poeticpearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finestgold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didstpick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon awar-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, inall Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectestchampions from the kingly commoners; bear me out in it, O God!
Chapter 27. Knights and Squires
Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; andhence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. Ahappy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as theycame with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the mostimminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as ajourneyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, andcareless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadlyencounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. Hewas as particular about the comfortable arrangements of his part ofthe boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box.When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, hehandled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistlingtinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes whileflank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had,for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether heever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever didchance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, nodoubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of thewatch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about somethingwhich he would find out when he obeyed the order, and notsooner. What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life ina world fail of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with theirpacks; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor ofhis; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, hisshort, black little pipe was one of the regular features of hisface. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of hisbunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row ofpipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of hishand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out insuccession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter;then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubbdressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, heput his pipe into his mouth. I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at leastof his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earlyair, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with thenameless
miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhalingit; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with acamphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against allmortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated as asort of disinfecting agent. The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha'sVineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnaciousconcerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the greatLeviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; andtherefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy themwhenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense ofreverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mysticways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possibledanger encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrouswhale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat,requiring only a little circumvention and some small application oftime and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant,unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in thematter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and athree years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke thatlasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided intowrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided.Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight andlast long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod;because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, squaretimber known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the meansof many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to bracethe ship against the icy concussions of those battering seas. Now these three mates- Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentousmen. They was who by universal prescription commanded three of thePequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in whichCaptain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on thewhales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or,being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as apicked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers ofjavelins. And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like aGothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer orharpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a freshlance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed inthe assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between thetwo, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet,that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were,and to what headsman each of them belonged. First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, hadselected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known. Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the mostwesterly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still existsthe last remnant of a village of red men, which has long suppliedthe neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daringharpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name ofGay-Headers. Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheekbones, and black rounding eyes- for an Indian, Oriental in theirlargeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expression- all thissufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood ofthose proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New Englandmoose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of themain. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of thewoodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales ofthe sea;
the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing theinfallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of hislithe snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitionsof some of the earlier Puritans and half-believed this wild Indianto be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego wasStubb the second mate's squire. Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-blacknegro-savage, with a lion-like tread- an Ahasuerus to behold.Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that thesailors called them ringbolts, and would talk of securing thetop-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarilyshipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his nativecoast. And never having been anywhere in the world but in Africa,Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most frequented by the whalemen;and having now led for many years the bold life of the fishery inthe ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what manner of men theyshipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as agiraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five inhis socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; anda white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to begtruce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro,Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like achess-man beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's company,be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the manythousand men before the mast employed in the American whalefishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officersare. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as withthe American army and military and merchant navies, and theengineering forces employed in the construction of the AmericanCanals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these casesthe native American literally provides the brains, the rest of theworld as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of thesewhaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward boundNantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from thehardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenlandwhalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the ShetlandIslands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon thepassage homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there isno telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They werenearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, notacknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato livingon a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along onekeel, what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootzdeputation from all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of theearth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world'sgrievances before that bar from which not very many of them evercome back. Black Little Pip- he never did- oh, no! he went before.Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall erelong see him, beating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternaltime, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bidstrike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in glory; called acoward here, hailed a hero there!
Chapter 28. Ahab
For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatcheswas seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each otherat the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary,they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only theysometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden andperemptory, that after all it was plain they but commandedvicariously. Yet, their supreme lord and dictator was there, thoughhitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the nowsacred retreat of the cabin.
Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, Iinstantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face was visible; for myfirst vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in theseclusion of the sea became almost a perturbation. This wasstrangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolicalincoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy Icould not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstandthem, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at thesolemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves.But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasiness- to call itso- which I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship,it seemed against all warranty to cherish such emotions. For thoughthe harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far morebarbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tamemerchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made meacquainted with, still I ascribed this- and rightly ascribed it- tothe fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavianvocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it wasespecially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, themates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colorlessmisgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in everypresentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officersand men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found,and they were every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, aVineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shotfrom out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather,though all the time running away from it to the southward; and byevery degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, graduallyleaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weatherbehind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey andgloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind theship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort ofleaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck atthe call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glancetowards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Realityoutran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck. There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor ofthe recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from thestake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs withoutconsuming them, or taking away one particle from their compactedaged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solidbronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's castPerseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, andcontinuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck,till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-likemark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seamsometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, whenthe upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenchinga single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottomere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenlyalive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whetherit was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one couldcertainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage littleor no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But onceTashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew,superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years olddid Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not inthe fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea.Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a greyManxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never beforesailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wildAhab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorialcredulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternaturalpowers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriouslycontradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should betranquilly laid out- which might hardly
come to pass, so hemuttered- then, whoever should do that last office for the dead,would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole. So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, andthe livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments Ihardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness wasowing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It hadpreviously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashionedfrom the polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw. "Aye, he wasdismasted off Japan," said the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but likehis dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming homefor it. He has a quiver of 'em." I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon eachside of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzenshrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so,into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one armelevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect,looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. Therewas an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate,unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forwarddedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did hisofficers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gesturesand expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful,consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not onlythat, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixionin his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of somemighty woe. Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into hiscabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to thecrew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivorystool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew lessgloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still lessand less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home,nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept himso secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almostcontinually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, orperceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed asunnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making apassage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whalingpreparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to,so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ orexcite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, theclouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever allclouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of thepleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm himfrom his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, Apriland May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even thebarest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least sendforth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladheartedvisitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playfulallurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth thefaint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soonflowered out in a smile.
Chapter 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb
Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequodnow went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea,almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August
ofthe Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing,redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heapedup- flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nightsseemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonelypride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the goldenhelmeted suns! For sleeping man, 'twa s hard to choose between suchwinsome days and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries ofthat unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potenciesto the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especiallywhen the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot hercrystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. Andall these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab'stexture. Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life,the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Amongsea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berthsto visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only thatnow, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that trulyspeaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin tothe planks. "It feels like going down into one's tomb,"- he wouldmutter to himself- "for an old captain like me to be descendingthis narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug berth." So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of thenight were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers ofthe band below; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon theforecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, butwith some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbingtheir slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude wouldbegin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch thecabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping atthe iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touchof humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usuallyabstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his weariedmates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, suchwould have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step,that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks.But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; andas with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship fromtaffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up frombelow, with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hintedthat if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no onecould say nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise;hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe oftow, and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thoudidst not know Ahab then. "Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wadme that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thynightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye tothe filling one at last.- Down, dog, and kennel!" Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the sosuddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then saidexcitedly, "I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do butless than half like it, sir." "Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently movingaway, as if to avoid some passionate temptation. "No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamelybe called a dog, sir."
"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, andbegone, or I'll clear the world of thee!" As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearingterrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. "I was never served so before without giving a hard blow forit," muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending thecabin-scuttle. "It's very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don'twell know whether to go back and strike him, or- what's that?- downhere on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought comingup in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It'squeer; very queer; and he's queer too; aye, take him fore and aft,he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How heflashed at me!- his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad! Anywaythere's something's on his mind, as sure as there must be somethingon a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more thanthree hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn'tthat Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he alwaysfinds the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, andthe sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied intoknots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a bakedbrick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what somefolks ashore call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row theysay- worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is,but the Lord keep me from catching it. He's full of riddles; Iwonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, asDough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should like toknow? Who's made appointments with him in the hold? Ain't thatqueer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old gameHere goesfor a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born intothe world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think ofit, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort ofqueer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of'em. But that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventhcommandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth- So here goesagain. But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he calledme ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that!He might as well have kicked me, and done with me. Maybe he didkick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken aback with hisbrow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil'sthe matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs. Coming afoul ofthat old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, Imust have been dreaming, though- How? how? how?- but the only way'sto stash it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning,I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight."
Chapter 30. The Pipe
When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over thebulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling asailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, andalso his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and plantingthe stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kingswere fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. Howcould one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones,without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan ofthe plank, and a king of the sea and a great lord of Leviathans wasAhab.
Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from hismouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into hisface. "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube,"this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go withme if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling,not pleasuring- aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all thewhile; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like thedying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest oftrouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that ismeant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild whitehairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke nomore-" He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissedin the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble thesinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced theplanks.
Chapter 31. Queen Mab
Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. "Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the oldman's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when Itried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my legright off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like ablazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious,Flask- you know how curious all dreams are- through all this ragethat I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, thatafter all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab.'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg, only a falseone.' And there's a mighty difference between a living thump and adead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fiftytimes more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The livingmember- that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks Ito myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toesagainst that cursed pyramid- so confoundedly contradictory was itall, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's hisleg now, but a cane-. a whale-bone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it wasonly a playful cudgelling- in fact, only a whaleboning that he gaveme- not a base kick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, theend of it- the foot part- what a small sort of end it is; whereas,if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a devilish broadinsult. But this insult is whittled down to a point only.' But nowcomes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I was batteringaway at the pyramid, a sort of badgerhaired old merman, with ahump on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me round.'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man, but I was frightened.Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over the fright. 'Whatam I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is that of yours, Ishould like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?' By thelord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round hisstern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had fora clout- what do you think, I saw?- why thunder alive, man, hisstern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says Ion second thought, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'WiseStubb,' said he, 'wise Stubb;' and kept muttering it all the time,a sort of eating of his gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn'tgoing to stop saying over his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought Imight as well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had onlyjust lifted my foot for it, when he roared out, 'Stop thatkicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's the matter now, old fellow?''Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue the insult. Captain Ahabkicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I 'right here it was.''Very good,' says he- 'he used his ivory leg, didn't he?' 'Yes, hedid,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb, what have you tocomplain of? Didn't he kick with right good
will? it wasn't acommon pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were kickedby a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's anhonor; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old Englandthe greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen,and made garter-knights of; but, be your boast, Stubb, that ye werekicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; bekicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kickback; for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see thatpyramid?' With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in somequeer fashion, to swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; andthere I was in my hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream,Flask?" "I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'" "May be; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye seeAhab standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, thebest thing you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; neverspeak to him, whatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts?Hark!" "Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whaleshereabouts! If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him! "What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small dropof something queer about that, eh? A white whale- did ye mark that,man? Look ye- there's something special in the wind. Stand by forit, Flask. Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum; hecomes this way."
Chapter 32. Cetology
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shallbe lost in its unshored harborless immensities. Ere that come topass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with thebarnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well toattend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciativeunderstanding of the more special leviathanic revelations andallusions of all sorts which are to follow. It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broadgenera, that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easytask. The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothingless is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latestauthorities have laid down. "No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which isentitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820. "It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into theinquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groupsand families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians ofthis animal" (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839. "Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters.""Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea." "A fieldstrewn with thorns." "All these incomplete indications but serve totorture us naturalists."
Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, andLesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, thoughof real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty;and so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science ofwhales. Many are the men, small and great, old and new, landsmenand seamen, who have at large or in little, written of the whale.Run over a few:- The Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny;Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius;Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; Marten; Lacepede;Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter;Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the Author ofMiriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to whatultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the abovecited extracts will show. Of the names in this list of whale authors only those followingOwen ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a realprofessional harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. Onthe separate subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is thebest existing authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothingof the great sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whaleis almost unworthy mentioning. And here be it said, that theGreenland whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He isnot even by any means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to thelong priority of his claims, and the profound ignorance which tillsome seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterlyunknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to this present day stillreigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whale-ports;this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference to nearlyall the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, willsatisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was tothem the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for anew proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,-the Greenland whale is deposed,- the great sperm whale nowreigneth! There are only two books in being which at all pretend to putthe living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in theremotest degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's andBennett's; both in their time surgeons to the English South-Seawhale-ships, and both exact and reliable men. The original mattertouching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes isnecessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of excellentquality, though mostly confined to scientific description. As yet,however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not completein any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is anunwritten life. Now the various species of whales need some sort of popularcomprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for thepresent, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments bysubsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matterin hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothingcomplete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must forthat very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to aminute anatomical description of the various species, or- in thisspace at least- to much of any description. My object here issimply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. Iam the architect, not the builder. But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in thePost-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of thesea after them; to have one's hands among the unspeakablefoundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearfulthing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of thisleviathan! The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me.
"Will he(the leviathan) make a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of himis vain! But I have swam through libraries and sailed throughoceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible hands; I amin earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries tosettle. First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science ofCetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that insome quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be afish. In his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "Ihereby separate the whales from the fish." But of my own knowledge,I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives andherring, against Linnaeus's express edict, were still founddividing the possession of the same seas with the Leviathan. The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished thewhales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of theirwarm bilocular heart, their lungs, their moveable eyelids, theirhollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," andfinally, "ex lege naturae jure meritoque." I submitted all this tomy friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, bothmessmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in theopinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient.Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good oldfashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonahto back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, inwhat internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above,Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these:lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and coldblooded. Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals,so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come. To be short,then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There youhave him. However contracted, that definition is the result ofexpanded meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but thewalrus is not a fish, because he is amphibious. But the last termof the definition is still more cogent, as coupled with the first.Almost any one must have noticed that all the fish familiar tolandsmen have not a flat, but a vertical, or up-and-down tail.Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, though it may be similarlyshaped, invariably assumes a horizontal position. By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no meansexclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hithertoidentified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor,on the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritativelyregarded as alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting and horizontaltailed fish must be included in this groundplan of cetology. Now,then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale host. * I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styledLamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins ofNantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. Butas these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking inthe mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially asthey do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and havepresented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom ofCetology.
First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into threeprimary BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shallcomprehend them all, both small and large. I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMOWHALE. As the type of the FOLIO I present the Sperm Whale; of theOCTAVO, the Grampus; of the DUODECIMO, the Porpoise. FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:- I.The Sperm Whale; II. the Right Whale; III. the Fin Back Whale; IV.the Humpbacked Whale; V. the Razor Back Whale; VI. the SulphurBottom Whale. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER I. (Sperm Whale).- This whale, amongthe English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale and thePhyseter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalotof the French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and theMacrocephalus of the Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largestinhabitant of the globe; the most formidable of all whales toencounter; the most majestic in aspect; and lastly, by far the mostvaluable in commerce; he being the only creature from which thatvaluable substance, spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiaritieswill, in many other places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly withhis name that I now have to do. Philologically considered, it isabsurd. Some centuries ago, when the sperm whale was almost whollyunknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil was onlyaccidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those daysspermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derivedfrom a creature identical with the one then known in England as theGreenland or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this samespermaceti was that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale whichthe first syllable of the word literally expresses. In those times,also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce, not being used for light,but only as an ointment and medicament. It was only to be had fromthe druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as Iopine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti becameknown, its original name was still retained by the dealers; nodoubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant ofits scarcity. And so the appellation must at last have come to bebestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti was reallyderived. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER II. (Right Whale).- In one respect thisis the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one firstregularly hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known aswhalebone or baleen; and the oil specially known as "whale oil," aninferior article in commerce. Among the fishermen, he isindiscriminately designated by all the following titles: The Whale;the Greenland Whale; the Black Whale; the Great Whale; the TrueWhale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of obscurity concerning theIdentity of the species thus multitudinously baptized. What then isthe whale, which I include in the second species of my Folios? Itis the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists; the GreenlandWhale of the English whaleman; the Baliene Ordinaire of the Frenchwhalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whalewhich for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutchand English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale which the Americanfishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the BrazilBanks, on the Nor' West Coast, and various other parts of theworld, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds.
Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale ofthe English and the right whale of the Americans. But theyprecisely agree in all their grand features; nor has there yet beenpresented a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radicaldistinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the mostinconclusive differences, that some departments of natural historybecome so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewheretreated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the spermwhale. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER III. (Fin-Back).- Under this head Ireckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back,Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and iscommonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried bypassengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. Inthe length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resemblesthe right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lightercolor, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-likeaspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of largewrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which hederives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is somethree or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part ofthe back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end.Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible,this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting fromthe surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly markedwith spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up andcasts shadows upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposedthat the watery circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial,with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dialthe shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. Heseems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very shy; alwaysgoing solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotestand most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet risinglike a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted withsuch wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy allpresent pursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished andunconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that styleupon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back issometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic speciesdenominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with baleen. Of theseso-called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be severalvarieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broad-nosedwhales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched whales;underjawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fisherman's namesfor a few sorts. In connexion with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it isof great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclaturemay be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales,yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of theLeviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, orteeth; notwithstanding that those marked parts or features veryobviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regularsystem of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions,which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then? The baleen,hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose peculiarities areindiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, without anyrecord to what may be the nature of their structure in other andmore essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and thehumpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases.Then this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each ofthese has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it isjust the same with the other parts above mentioned. In varioussorts of whales, they form such irregular combinations; or, in thecase of any one of them detached, such an irregular isolation;
asutterly to defy all general methodization formed upon such a basis.On this rock every one of the whale-naturalists has split. But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts ofthe whale, in his anatomy- there, at least, we shall be able to hitthe right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there inthe Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet wehave seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classifythe Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of thevarious leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions afiftieth part as available to the systematizer as those externalones already enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to takehold of the whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, andboldly sort them that way. And this is the Bibliographical systemhere adopted; and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, forit alone is practicable. To proceed. BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV. (Hump Back).- This whale is oftenseen on the northern American coast. He has been frequentlycaptured there, and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on himlike a peddler; or you might call him the Elephant and Castlewhale. At any rate, the popular name for him does not sufficientlydistinguish him, since the sperm whale also has a hump though asmaller one. His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is themost gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gayfoam and white water generally than any other of them. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razar Back).- Of this whale littleis known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn.Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers.Though no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but hisback, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know littlemore of him, nor does anybody else. BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).- Another retiringgentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping alongthe Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldomseen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southernseas, and then always at too great a distance to study hiscountenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walksof line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I cansay nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldestNantucketer. Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo). OCTAVOES.* These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, amongwhich present may be numbered:- I., the Grampus; II., the BlackFish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer. * Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is veryplain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller thanthose of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionatelikeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume inits dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Foliovolume, but the Octavo volume does. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus).- Though this fish,whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished aproverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep,
yet ishe not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the granddistinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists haverecognised him for one. He is of moderate octave size, varying fromfifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of correspondingdimensions round the waist. He swims in herds; he is neverregularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in quantity, andpretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is regardedas premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black Fish).- I give the popularfishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are thebest. Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shallsay so, and suggest another. I do so now touching the Black Fish,so called because blackness is the rule among almost all whales.So, call him the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is wellknown and from the circumstance that the inner angles of his lipsare curved upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grinon his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet inlength. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar wayof showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks somethinglike a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the spermwhale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up thesupply of cheap oil for domestic employment- as some frugalhousekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone bythemselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Thoughtheir blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield youupwards of thirty gallons of oil. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostrilwhale.- Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named Isuppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for apeaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while itshorn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain tofifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthenedtusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed fromthe horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, whichhas an ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to theaspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What precise purpose this ivoryhorn or lance answers, it would be hard to say. It does not seem tobe used like the blade of the sword-fish and bill-fish; though somesailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turningover the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin said it wasused for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the surface ofthe Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his hornup, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of thesesurmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however thisone-sided horn may really be used by the Narwhale- however that maybe- it would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder inreading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard called the Tuskedwhale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He is certainly acurious example of the Unicornism to be found in almost everykingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old authors Ihave gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn was in ancient daysregarded as the great antidote against poison, and as such,preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also distilled toa volatile salts for fainting ladies the same way that the horns ofthe male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was initself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tellsme that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, whenQueen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from awindow of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down theThames; "when Sir Martin returned from that voyage," saith BlackLetter, "on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigiouslong horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung inthe castle at Windsor." An Irish author
avers that the Earl ofLeicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highnessanother horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature. The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being ofa milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots ofblack. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there islittle of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in thecircumpolar seas. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).- Of this whale littleis precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to theprofessed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance,I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is verysavage- a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Foliowhales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mightybrute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I neverheard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the namebestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. Forwe are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharksincluded. BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).- This gentleman isfamous for his tail which he uses for a ferule in thrashing hisfoes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he workshis passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in theworld by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasherthan of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas. Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III,(Duodecimo.) DUODECIMOES.- These include the smaller whales. I. The HuzzaPorpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthedPorpoise. To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, itmay possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding fouror five feet should be marshalled among WHALES- a word, which, inthe popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But thecreatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, bythe terms of my definition of what a whale is- i.e. a spoutingfish, with a horizontal tail. BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1. (Huzza Porpoise).- This is thecommon porpoise found all over the globe. The name is of my ownbestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, andsomething must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus,because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broadsea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-Julycrowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by themariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezybillows to windward. They are the lads that always live before thewind. They are accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself canwithstand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, thenheaven help ye; the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. Awell-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon ofgood oil. But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his jawsis exceedingly valuable. It is in request among jewellers andwatchmakers. Sailors put in on their hones. Porpoise meat is goodeating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a porpoisespouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very readilydiscernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; andyou will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. (Algerine Porpoise).- Apirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. Heis somewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the samegeneral make. Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I havelowered for him many times, but never yet saw him captured. BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III. (Mealy-mouthed Porpoise).-The largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so faras it is known. The only English name, by which he has hithertobeen designated, is that of the fisher- Right-Whale Porpoise, fromthe circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of thatFolio. In shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise,being of a less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite aneat and gentlemanlike figure. He has no fins on his back (mostother porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indianeyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils him. Though hisentire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet aboundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called the"bright waist," that line streaks him from stem to stern, with twoseparate colors, black above and white below. The white comprisespart of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him lookas if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. Amost mean and mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the commonporpoise. Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch asthe Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all theLeviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive,half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know byreputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by theirfore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuableto future investigators, who may complete what I have here butbegun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caughtand marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System,according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:TheBottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; theCape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale;the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the QuogWhale; the Blue Whale; &c. From Icelandic, Dutch, and oldEnglish authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertainwhales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit themas altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them formere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would notbe here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that Ihave kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standingthus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left,with the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompletedtower. For small erections may be finished by their firstarchitects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone toposterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This wholebook is but a draught- nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time,Strength, Cash, and Patience!
Chapter 33. The Specksynder
Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good aplace as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity onship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class ofofficers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than thewhale-fleet.
The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation isevinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, twocenturies and more ago, the command of a whale-ship was not whollylodged in the person now called the captain, but was dividedbetween him and an officer called the Specksynder. Literally thisword means Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time made it equivalentto Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the captain's authority wasrestricted to the navigation and general management of the vessel;while over the whale-hunting department and all its concerns, theSpecksynder or Chief Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the BritishGreenland Fishery, under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, thisold Dutch official is still retained, but his former dignity issadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer;and as such, is but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns.Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the harpooneers thesuccess of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since in theAmerican Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat,but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground)the command of the ship's deck is also his; therefore the grandpolitical maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally liveapart from the men before the mast, and be in some waydistinguished as their professional superior; though always, bythem, familiarly regarded as their social equal. Now, the grand distinction between officer and man at sea, isthis- the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-shipsand merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with thecaptain; and so, too, in most of the American whalers theharpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship. That is tosay, they take their meals in the captain's cabin, and sleep in aplace indirectly communicating with it. Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far thelongest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiarperils of it, and the community of interest prevailing among acompany, all of whom, high or low, depend for their profits, notupon fixed wages, but upon their common luck, together with theircommon vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work; though all thesethings do in some cases tend to beget a less rigorous disciplinethan in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind how much like an oldMesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some primitiveinstances, live together; for all that, the punctilious externals,at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, and inno instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships inwhich you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with anelated grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extortingalmost as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple,and not the shabbiest of pilot-cloth. And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was theleast given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though theonly homage he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience;though he required no man to remove the shoes from his feet erestepping upon the quarter-deck; and though there were times when,owing to peculiar circumstances connected with events hereafter tobe detailed, he addressed them in unusual terms, whether ofcondescension or in terrorem, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahabwas by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages ofthe sea. Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, thatbehind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes maskedhimself; incidentally making use of them for other and more privateends than they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certainsultanism of his brain,
which had otherwise in a good degreeremained unmanifested; through those forms that same sultanismbecame incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship. For be a man'sintellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume thepractical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid ofsome sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, inthemselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for everkeeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings;and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those menwho become famous more through their infinite inferiority to thechoice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through theirundoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such largevirtue lurks in these small things when extreme politicalsuperstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even toidiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in thecase of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empireencircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abasedbefore the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragicdramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullestsweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally soimportant in his art, as the one now alluded to. But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucketgrimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors andKings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor oldwhale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majesticaltrappings and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grandin thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived forin the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!
Chapter 34. The Cabin-Table
It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his paleloaf-of-bread face from the cabinscuttle, announces dinner to hislord and master who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just beentaking an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning thelatitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for thatdaily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his completeinattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had notheard his menial. But presently, catching hold of the mizenshrouds, he swings himself to the deck, and in an even,unexhilarated voice, saying, "Dinner, Mr. Starbuck," disappearsinto the cabin. When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, andStarbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he isseated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turnsalong the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says,with some touch of pleasantness, "Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descendsthe scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, andthen slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be allright with that important rope, he likewise takes up the oldburden, and with a rapid "Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows after hispredecessors. But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on thequarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint;for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions,and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiselesssquall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head; and then, bya dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for ashelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remainsvisible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringingup the rear with music. But ere stepping into the cabin
doorwaybelow, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, then,independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence, inthe character of Abjectus, or the Slave. It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intenseartificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of thedeck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldlyand defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, letthose very officers the next moment go down to their customarydinner in that same commander's cabin, and straightway theirinoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him, ashe sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous, sometimesmost comical. Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. Tohave been Belshazzar, King of Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar,not haughtily but courteously, therein certainly must have beensome touch of mundane grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal andintelligent spirit presides over his own private dinner-table ofinvited guests, that man's unchallenged power and dominion ofindividual influence for the time; that man's royalty of statetranscends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Whohas but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar.It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding.Now, if to this consideration you super-add the official supremacyof a ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause ofthat peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned. Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, manedsea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his war-like butstill deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waitedto be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, inAhab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. Withone mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife,as he carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that forthe world they would have profaned that moment with the slightestobservation, even upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! Andwhen reaching out his knife and fork, between which the slice ofbeef was locked, Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towardshim, the mate received his meat as though receiving alms; and cutit tenderly; and a little started if, perchance, the knife grazedagainst the plate; and chewed it noiselessly; and swallowed it, notwithout circumspection. For, like the Coronation banquet atFrankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly dines with the sevenimperial electors, so these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals,eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade notconversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was tochoking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below.And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy ofthis weary family party. His were the shin-bones of the salinebeef; his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to havepresumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamountto larceny in the first degree. Had he helped himself at the table,doubtless, never more would he have been able to hold his head upin this honest world; nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab neverforbade him. And had Flask helped himself, the chances were Ahabhad never so much as noticed it. Least of all, did Flask presume tohelp himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners of the shipdenied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, sunnycomplexion; or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in suchmarketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was notfor him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterlessman! Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, andFlask is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner wasbadly jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both
had thestart of him; and yet they also have the privilege of lounging inthe rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask,happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms ofconcluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will notget more than three mouthfuls that day; for it is against holyusage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was thatFlask once admitted in private, that ever since he had arisen tothe dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never known whatit was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what he atedid not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him.Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed frommy stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit ofold-fashioned beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I wasbefore the mast. There's the fruit of promotion now; there's thevanity of glory: there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it wereso that any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask inFlask's official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order toobtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinnertime, and get a peepat Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly anddumfoundered before awful Ahab. Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called thefirst table in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, takingplace in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth wascleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallidsteward. And then the three harpooneers were bidden to the feast,they being its residuary legatees. They made a sort of temporaryservants' hall of the high and mighty cabin. In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint andnameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was theentire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy ofthose inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, themates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws,the harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that there wasa report to it. They dined like lords; they filled their bellieslike Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such portentousappetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacanciesmade by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain tobring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of thesolid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go witha nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly wayof accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise.And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy'smemory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into agreat empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, beganlaying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturallya very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this breadfacedsteward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. Andwhat with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, andthe periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages,Dough-Boy's whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly,after seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things theydemanded, he would escape from their clutches into his littlepantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through the blindsof its door, till all was over. It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego,opposing his filed teeth to the Indian's; crosswise to them, Daggooseated on the floor, for a bench would have brought hishearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of hiscolossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when anAfrican elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all this, thegreat negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. Itseemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfulshe could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad,
baronial,and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strongand drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through hisdilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not bybeef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, hehad a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating- an ugly soundenough- so much so, that the trembling DoughBoy almost looked tosee whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. Andwhen he would hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself,that his bones might be picked, the simple-witted steward all butshattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by hissudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which theharpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and otherweapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they wouldostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not atall tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget thatin his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have beenguilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretion. Alas! Dough-Boy!hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkinshould he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, tohis great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise anddepart; to his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martialbones jingling in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars inscabbards. But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominallylived there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits,they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just beforesleeping-time, when they passed through it to their own peculiarquarters. In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most Americanwhale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion thatby rights the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is bycourtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there.So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequodmight more properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than init. For when they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoorenters a house; turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned outthe next; and, as a permanent thing, residing in the open air. Nordid they lose much hereby; in the cabin was no companionship;socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally included in thecensus of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in theworld, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri.And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of thewoods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out thewinter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howlingold age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, therefed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!
Chapter 35. The Mast-Head
It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotationwith the other seamen my first masthead came round. In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almostsimultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though shemay have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching herproper cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years'voyage she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her- say, anempty vial even- then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last!and not till her skysail-poles sail in among the spires of theport, does she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing onewhale more.
Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat,is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measureexpatiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-headswere the old Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find noneprior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel,must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiestmast-head in all Asia, or Africa either; yet (ere the final truckwas put to it) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said tohave gone by the board, in the dread gale of God's wrath;therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority over theEgyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of mast-headstanders, is an assertion based upon the general belief amongarchaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded forastronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by thepeculiar stairlike formation of all four sides of those edifices;whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those oldastronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for newstars; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail,or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famousChristian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillarin the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on itssummit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him wehave a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads;who was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain,hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to the last,literally died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads wehave but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who,though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirelyincompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering anystrange sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the columnof Vendome stands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feetin the air; careless, now, who rules the decks below, whether LouisPhilippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too,stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and likeone of Hercules' pillars, his column marks that point of humangrandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, ona capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in Trafalgar Square;and even when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yetgiven that a hidden hero is there; for where there is smoke, mustbe fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson,will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked tobefriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which theygaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetratethrough the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals andwhat rocks must be shunned. It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-headstanders of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it isnot so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the solehistorian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tellsus, that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships wereregularly launched in pursuit of the game, the people of thatisland erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which thelook-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls goupstairs in a hen-house. A few years ago this same plan was adoptedby the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game,gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach. But thiscustom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the one propermast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads arekept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking theirregular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every twohours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedinglypleasant the mast-head: nay, to a dreamy meditative man it isdelightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks,striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts,while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim thehugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between
theboots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lostin the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but thewaves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade windsblow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, inthis tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; youhear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts ofcommonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; youhear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall ofstocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall havefor dinner- for all your meals for three years and more are snuglystowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable. In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or fouryears' voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours youspend at the mast-head would amount to several entire months. Andit is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote soconsiderable a portion of the whole term of your natural life,should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosyinhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness offeeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentrybox, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snugcontrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your mostusual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where youstand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen)called the t' gallant crosstrees. Here, tossed about by the sea,the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull'shorns. To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloftwith you, in the shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking thethickest watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body; foras the soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannotfreely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without runninggreat risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing thesnowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not so much of a house asit is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You cannotput a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can youmake a convenience closet of your watchcoat. Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that themast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with thoseenviable little tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which thelook-outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclementweather of the frozen seas. In the fireside narrative of CaptainSleet, entitled "A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of theGreenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the LostIcelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;" in this admirable volume, allstanders of mast-heads are furnished with a charminglycircumstantial account of the then recently invented crow's-nest ofthe Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft. Hecalled it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself; he beingthe original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculousfalse delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children afterour own names (we fathers being the original inventors andpatentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves anyother apparatus we may beret. In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest issomething like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however,where it is furnished with a movable sidescreen to keep to windwardof your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast,you ascend into it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. Onthe after side, or side next the stern of the ship, is acomfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas,comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to keepyour speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nauticalconveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head inthis crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a riflewith him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask andshot, for the purpose of popping off the stray
narwhales, orvagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannotsuccessfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance ofthe water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing.Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe,as he does, all the little detailed conveniences of hiscrow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many of these, andthough he treats us to a very scientific account of his experimentsin this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for thepurpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is calledthe "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribableto the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and inthe Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so manybroken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though theCaptain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all hislearned "binnacle deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and"approximate errors," he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that hewas not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, asto fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenishedlittle case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow'snest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, Igreatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and learnedCaptain; yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterlyignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend andcomforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hoodedhead he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird'snest within three or four perches of the pole. But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloftas Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantageis greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity ofthose seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. Forone, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in thetop to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom Imight find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwinga lazy leg over the top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of thewatery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimatedestination. Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that Ikept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving inme, how could I- being left completely to myself at such athought-engendering altitude- how could I but lightly hold myobligations to observe all whaleships' standing orders, "Keep yourweather eye open, and sing out every time." And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-ownersof Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries anylad with lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonablemeditativeness; and who offers to ship with the Phaedon instead ofBowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say: your whalesmust be seen before they can be killed; and this sunken-eyed youngPlatonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never makeyou one pint of sperm the richer. Nor are these monitions at allunneeded. For nowadays, the whalefishery furnishes an asylum formany romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgustedwith the corking care of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar andblubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches himself upon themast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and in moodyphrase ejaculates:"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain."
Very often do the captains of such ships take thoseabsent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with notfeeling sufficient "interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that theyare so hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as that in theirsecret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. Butall in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their visionis imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain thevisual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home. "Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads,"we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast notraised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thouart up here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have beenshoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such anopium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is thisabsent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts,that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at hisfeet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul,pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen,gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered,uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him theembodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul bycontinually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spiritebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time andspace; like Crammer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at lasta part of every shore the round globe over. There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life impartedby a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by thesea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, thisdream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold atall; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartianvortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather,with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparentair into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, yePantheists!
Chapter 36. The Quarter-Deck
(Enter Ahab: Then, all) It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that onemorning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascendedthe cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walkat that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a fewturns in the garden. Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he pacedhis old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that theywere all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiarmark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed anddented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints-the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, evenas his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so fullof his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made,now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost seethat thought turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced;so completely possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed theinward mould of every outer movement.
"D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's inhim pecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out." The hours wore on;- Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon,pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in hisaspect. It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by thebulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, andwith one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to sendeverybody aft. "Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or nevergiven on ship-board except in some extraordinary case. "Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! comedown!" When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curiousand not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he lookednot unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab,after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyesamong the crew, started from his standpoint; and as though not asoul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With benthead and half-slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of thewondering whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whisperedto Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purposeof witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long.Vehemently pausing, he cried:"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?" "Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score ofclubbed voices. "Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observingthe hearty animation into which his unexpected question had somagnetically thrown them. "And what do ye next, men?" "Lower away, and after him!" "And what tune is it ye pull to, men?" "A dead whale or a stove boat!" More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grewthe countenance of the old man at every shout; while the marinersbegan to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it wasthat they themselves became so excited at such seeminglypurposeless questions. But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolvingin his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, andtightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:-
"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders abouta white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"-holding up a broad bright coin to the sun- "it is a sixteen dollarpiece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul." While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking,was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket,as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words wasmeanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangelymuffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming ofthe wheels of his vitality in him. Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards themain-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the goldwith the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoeverof ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and acrooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale,with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke- look ye,whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have thisgold ounce, my boys!" "Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulinsthey hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. "It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down thetopmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharpfor white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out." All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on witheven more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at themention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as ifeach was separately touched by some specific recollection. "Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be thesame that some call Moby Dick." "Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then,Tash?" "Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?"said the Gay-Header deliberately. "And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy,even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?" "And he have one, two, three- oh! good many iron in him hide,too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-teebe-twisk, like him- him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwinghis hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle- "like him-him-" "Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie alltwisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one,like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucketwool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and hefan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, itis Moby Dick ye have seen- Moby Dick- Moby Dick!" "Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, hadthus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but atlast seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all
thewonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick- but it was notMoby Dick that took off thy leg?" "Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck;aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me;Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye,aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of aheart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whalethat razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and aday!" Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations heshouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, andround the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and roundperdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye haveshipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land,and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rollsfin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I thinkye do look brave." "Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closerto the excited old man: "A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharplance for Moby Dick!" "God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout. "God blessye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what'sthis long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the whitewhale! art not game for Moby Dick?" "I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business wefollow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander'svengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even ifthou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in ourNantucket market." "Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thourequirest a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man,and the accountants have computed their great counting-house theglobe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of aninch; then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a greatpremium here!" "He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for?methinks it rings most vast, but hollow." "Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smotethee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumbthing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." "Hark ye yet again- the little lower layer. All visible objects,man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event- in the livingact, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoningthing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind theunreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike though the mask! Howcan the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through thewall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasksme; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with aninscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chieflywhat I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whaleprincipal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me ofblasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could thesun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sortof fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But notmy master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hathno confines.
Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends'glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; myheat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what issaid in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whomwarm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let itgo. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn- living,breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards- theunrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and giveno reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew!Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale?See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it.Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot,Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin;no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poorhunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will nothang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone. Ah!constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, butspeak!- Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside)Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in hislungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, withoutrebellion." "God keep me!- keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly. But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate,Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laughfrom the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in thecordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, asfor a moment their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcasteyes lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the subterraneanlaugh died away; the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the shipheaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! whystay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions thanwarnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, asverifications of the fore-going things within. For with littleexternal to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being,these still drive us on. "The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab. Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers,he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them beforehim near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while histhree mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest ofthe ship's company formed a circle round the group; he stood for aninstant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wildeyes met his, as the bloodshot eves of the prairie wolves meet theeye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail ofthe bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of theIndian. "Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon tothe nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink. Round with it,round! Short draughts- long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan'shoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forksout at the serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. Thatway it went, this way it comes. Hand it me- here's a hollow! Men,ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward,refill! "Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round thiscapstan; and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and yeharpooneers, stand there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners,ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom of myfishermen fathers before me. O men, you
will yet see that- Ha! boy,come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, thispewter had run brimming again, wert not thou St. Vitus' imp- away,thou ague! "Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done!Let me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he graspedthe three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while sodoing, suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile glancingintently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed asthough, by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain haveshocked into them the same fiery emotion accumulated within theLeyden jar of his own magnetic life. The three mates quailed beforehis strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask lookedsideways from him; the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright. "In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye threebut once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing,that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would havedropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, yemates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmenthere- yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiantharpooneers. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes thefeet of beggars, using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals!your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not orderye; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, yeharpooneers!" Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood withthe detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long,held, barbs up, before him. "Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over!know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, yecup-bearers, advance. The irons! take them; hold them while Ifill!" Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, hebrimmed the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from thepewter. "Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices!Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissolubleleague. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun nowwaits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, yemen that man the deathful whaleboat's bow- Death to Moby Dick! Godhunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!" The long,barbed steel goblets were lifted; and to cries and maledictionsagainst the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffeddown with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Oncemore, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds among thefrantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they alldispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.
Chapter 37. Sunset
The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazingout. I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm mytrack; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush likewine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun- slow dived fromnoon- goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endlesshill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown ofLombardy. Yet is it
bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see notits far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, thatdazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron- that I know- not gold. 'Tis split,too- that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems tobeat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort thatneeds no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise noblyspurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, itlights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'erenjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoyingpower; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in themidst of Paradise! Good night-good night! (waving his hand, hemoves from the window.) 'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at theleast; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels,and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills ofpowder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! thatto fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I'vedared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think memadStarbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! Thatwild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecywas that I should be dismembered; and- Aye! I lost this leg. I nowprophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be theprophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods,ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, yepugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say asschoolboys do to bulliesTake some one of your own size; don'tpommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but yehave run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! Ihave no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; comeand see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, elseye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to myfixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is groovedto run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts ofmountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's anobstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
Chapter 38. Dusk
By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it. My soul is more than matched; she's over-manned; and by amadman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on sucha field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out ofme! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him toit. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows mewith a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's overhim, he cries;- aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, howhe lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,-to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! Forin his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has theround watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has itsglassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. Iwould up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock's rundown; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to liftagain. [A burst of revelry from the forecastle.]
Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touchof human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies!that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinksit pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on thegay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it,where he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the deadwater of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings.The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set thewatch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down andheld to knowledge,- as wild, untutored things are forced to feed-Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but'tis not me! that horror's out of me, and with the soft feeling ofthe human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantomfutures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessedinfluences!
Chapter 39. First Night Watch
(Stubb solus, and mending a brace.) Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!- I've been thinking overit ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so?Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer;and come what will, one comfort's always left- that unfailingcomfort is, it's all predestinated. I heard not all his talk withStarbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as Ithe other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. Itwigged it, knew it; had the gift, might readily have prophesiedit- for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb,wise Stubb- that's my title- well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here'sa carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what itwill, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks inall your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's myjuicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out?- Giving aparty to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as afrigate's pennant, and so am I- fa, la! lirra, skirra! OhWe'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. A brave stave that- who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir-(Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.-Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job- coming.
Chapter 40. Midnight, Forecastle
HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS (Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging,leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing inchorus.) Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! Our captain's commanded.- 1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR
Oh, boys, don't be sentimental. it's bad for the digestion! Takea tonic, follow me! (Sings, and all follow) Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we'll have one of those fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail! While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale! MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK Eight bells there, forward! 2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bell-boy? Strikethe bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call thewatch. I've the sort of mouth for that- the hogshead mouth. So, so,(thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!Eight bells there below! Tumble up! DUTCH SAILOR Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark thisin our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some asfilliping to others. We sing; they sleep- aye, lie down there, likeground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, andhail 'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lassies.Tell 'em it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and cometo judgment. That's the way- that's it; thy throat ain't spoiledwith eating Amsterdam butter. FRENCH SAILOR Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor inBlanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by alllegs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine! PIP (Sulky and sleepy) Don't know where it is. FRENCH SAILOR Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say;merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now,Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!Legs! legs! ICELAND SAILOR I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my taste. I'mused to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject;but excuse me.
MALTESE SAILOR Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take his lefthand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! Imust have partners! SICILIAN SAILOR Aye; girls and a green!- then I'll hop with ye; yea, turngrasshopper! LONG-ISLAND SAILOR Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn whenyou may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes themusic; now for it! AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching thetambourine up the scuttle.) Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bits; up you mount!Now, boys! (The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; somesleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.) AZORE SAILOR (Dancing) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it,bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers! PIP Jinglers, you say?- there goes another, dropped off; I pound itso. CHINA SAILOR Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda ofthyself. FRENCH SAILOR Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Splitjibs! tear yourself! TASHTEGO (Quietly smoking) That's a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save mysweat. OLD MANX SAILOR I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they aredancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will- that's thebitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds
roundcorners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and thegreen-skulled crews! Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball,as you scholars have it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom ofit. Dance on, lads, you're young; I was once. 3D NANTUCKET SAILOR Spell oh!- whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in acalm- give a whiff, Tash. (They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the skydarkens- the wind rises.) LASCAR SAILOR By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born,high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow,Seeva! MALTESE SAILOR (Reclining and shaking hiscap) It's the waves- the snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'llshake their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, thenI'd go drown, and chassee with them evermore! There's naught sosweet on earth- heaven may not match it!- as those swift glances ofwarm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hidesuch ripe, bursting grapes. SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad- fleet interlacings of thelimbs- lithe swayings- coyingsflutterings! lip! heart! hip! allgraze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else comesatiety. Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.) TAHITAN SAILOR (Reclining on a mat) Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!- the Heeva-Heeva! Ah!low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but thesoft soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat! green thefirst day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me!-not thou nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplantedto yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee's peak ofspears, when they leap down the crags and drown the villages? - Theblast, the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.) PORTUGUESE SAILOR How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by forreefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mellthey'll go lunging presently. DANISH SAILOR
Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest!Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no moreafraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight theBaltic with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes! 4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him hemust always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspoutwith a pistol- fire your ship right into it! ENGLISH SAILOR Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the lads tohunt him up his whale! ALL Aye! aye! OLD MANX SAILOR How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree tolive when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none but thecrew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort ofweather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split atsea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there'sanother in the sky lurid- like, ye see, all else pitch black. DAGGOO What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarriedout of it! SPANISH SAILOR (Aside.) He wants to bully, ah!- the old grudge makes me touchy(Advancing.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark sideof mankind- devilish dark at that. No offence. DAGGOO (Grimly) None. ST. JAGO'S SAILOR That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or else in hisone case our old Mogul's firewaters are somewhat long inworking. 5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR What's that I saw- lightning? Yes.
SPANISH SAILOR No; Daggoo showing his teeth. DAGGOO (Springing) Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver! SPANISH SAILOR (Meeting him) Knife thee heartily! big frame, small spirit! ALL A row! a row! a row! TASHTEGO (With a whiff) A row a'low, and a row aloft- Gods and men- both brawlers!Humph! BELFAST SAILOR A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge in withye! ENGLISH SAILOR Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring! OLD MANX SAILOR Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cainstruck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thouthe ring? MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK Hands by the halyards! in top-gallant sails! Stand by to reeftopsails! ALL The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (They scatter.) PIP (Shrinking under the windlass) Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes thejib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royalyard! It's worse than being in the whirled woods, the last day ofthe year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they go,all cursing, and here I
don't. Fine prospects to 'em; they're onthe road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! But thosechaps there are worse yet- they are your white squalls, they. Whitesqualls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all theirchat just now, and the white whale- shirr! shirr!but spoken ofonce! and only this evening- it makes me ingle all over like mytambourine- that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him!Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, havemercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all menthat have no bowels to feel fear!
Chapter 41. Moby Dick
I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with therest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted,and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread inmy soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab'squenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the historyof that murderous monster against whom I and all the others hadtaken our oaths of violence and revenge. For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied,secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostlyfrequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knewof his existence; a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seenhim; while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly givenbattle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number ofwhale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over theentire watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushingtheir quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for awhole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a singlenewstelling sail of any sort; the inordinate length of eachseparate voyage; the irregularity of the times of sailing fromhome; all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect,long obstructed the spread through the whole world-widewhaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerningMoby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vesselsreported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such orsuch a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity,which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, hascompletely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfairpresumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been noother than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery hadbeen marked by various and not unfrequent instances of greatferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked; therefore itwas, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to MobyDick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content toascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to theperils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individualcause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahaband the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded. And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, bychance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they hadevery one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered forhim, as for any other whale of that species. But at length, suchcalamities did ensue in these assaults- not restricted to sprainedwrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputationsbutfatal to the last degree of fatality; those repeated disastrousrepulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick;those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many bravehunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventuallycome.
Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and stillthe more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. Fornot only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body ofall surprising terrible events,- as the smitten tree gives birth toits fungi; but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terrafirma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate realityfor them to cling to. And as the sea surpasses the land in thismatter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritimelife, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors whichsometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen as a bodyunexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary toall sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds the mostdirectly brought into contact with whatever is appallinglyastonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatestmarvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in suchremotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, andpassed a thousand shores, you would not come to any chiselledhearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; insuch latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as hedoes, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all tending to make hisfancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. No wonder, then, that evergathering volume from the mere transit over the wildest wateryspaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the endincorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, andhalf-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, whicheventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed fromanything that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panicdid he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, hadheard of the White Whale, few of those hunters were willing toencounter the perils of his jaw. But there were still other and more vital practical influencesat work. Nor even at the present day has the original prestige ofthe Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other speciesof the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body.There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent andcourageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Rightwhale, would perhaps- either from professional inexperience, orincompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale;at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among thosewhaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have neverhostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge ofthe leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitivelypursued in the North; seated on their hatches, these men willhearken with a childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild,strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the preeminenttremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelinglycomprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him. And as if the now tested reality of his might had in formerlegendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some booknaturalists- Olassen and Povelson- declaring the Sperm Whale notonly to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, butalso to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst forhuman blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, werethese or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his NaturalHistory, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the SpermWhale, all fish (sharks included) are "struck with the most livelyterrors," and "often in the precipitancy of their flight dashthemselves against the rocks with such violence as to causeinstantaneous death." And however the general experiences in thefishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their fullterribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, thesuperstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of theirvocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.
So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, nota few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, theearlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimeshard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in theperils of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting thatalthough other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chaseand point lances at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was notfor mortal man. That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torninto a quick eternity. On this head, there are some remarkabledocuments that may be consulted. Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of thesethings were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greaternumber who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely,without the specific details of any certain calamity, and withoutsuperstitious accompaniments were sufficiently hardy not to fleefrom the battle if offered. One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to belinked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiouslyinclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous;that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at oneand the same instant of time. Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceitaltogether without some faint show of superstitious probability.For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet beendivulged, even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways ofthe Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part,unaccountable to his pursuers; and from time to time haveoriginated the most curious and contradictory speculationsregarding them, especially concerning the mystic modes whereby,after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself with suchvast swiftness to the most widely distant points. It is a thing well known to both American and Englishwhale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative recordyears ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured farnorth in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs ofharpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid,that in some of these instances it has been declared that theinterval of time between the two assaults could not have exceededvery many days. Hence, by inference, it has been believed by somewhalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem to man, wasnever a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real livingexperience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of theinland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was saidto be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to thesurface); and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusafountain near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have comefrom the Holy Land by an underground passage); these fabulousnarrations are almost fully equalled by the realities of thewhalemen. Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; andknowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale hadescaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that somewhalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaringMoby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is butubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be plantedin his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed heshould ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be buta ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds ofleagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen.
But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there wasenough in the earthly make and incontestable character of themonster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it wasnot so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him fromother sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out- a peculiarsnow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump.These were his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in thelimitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a longdistance, to those who knew him. The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbledwith the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained hisdistinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed,literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at highnoon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamyfoam, all spangled with golden gleamings. Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, noryet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale withnatural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which,according to specific accounts, he had over and over again evincedin his assaults. More than all, his treacherous retreats struckmore of dismay than perhaps aught else. For, when swimming beforehis exulting pursuers, with every apparent symptom of alarm, he hadseveral times been known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing downupon them, either stave their boats to splinters, or drive themback in consternation to their ship. Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But thoughsimilar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no meansunusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed theWhite Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that everydismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded ashaving been inflicted by an unintelligent agent. Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury theminds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid thechips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, theyswam out of the white curds of the whale's direful wrath into theserene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth ora bridal. His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirlingin the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his brokenprow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe,blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep lifeof the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenlysweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick hadreaped away Ahab's leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field.No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote himwith more seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then,that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished awild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for thatin his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, notonly all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritualexasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniacincarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep menfeel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heartand half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from thebeginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribeone-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the eastreverenced in their statue devil;- Ahab did not fall down andworship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to theabhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it.All that most maddens and torments; all that
stirs up the lees ofthings; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews andcakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; allevil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practicallyassailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump thesum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race fromAdam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he bursthis hot heart's shell upon it. It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instantrise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, indarting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to asudden, passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received thestroke that tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodilylaceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced toturn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab andanguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in midwinter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that historn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and sointerfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homewardvoyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him,seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during thepassage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg,yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and wasmoreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced tolace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. Ina strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And,when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mildstun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to allappearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind him with theCape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into theblessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collectedfront, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and hismates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then,Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes acunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may havebut become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's fulllunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabatedHudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomablythrough the Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowingmonomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been leftbehind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great naturalintellect had perished. That before living agent, now became theliving instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his speciallunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned allits concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far fromhaving lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess athousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bearupon any one reasonable object. This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remainsunhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth isprofound. Winding far down from within the very heart of thisspiked Hotel de Cluny where we here stand- however grand andwonderful, now quit it;- and take your way, ye nobler, saddersouls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath thefantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root of grandeur, hiswhole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique buriedbeneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a brokenthrone, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid,he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piledentablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls!question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did begetye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only willthe old State-secret come.
Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely; all mymeans are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power tokill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankindhe did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing ofhis dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to hiswill determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in thatdissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, noNantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, andthat to the quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtakenhim. The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewisepopularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the addedmoodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing inthe Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor isit so very unlikely, that far from distrusting his fitness foranother whaling voyage, on account of such dark symptoms, thecalculating people of that prudent isle were inclined to harbor theconceit, that for those very reasons he was all the betterqualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full of rage andwildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and scorchedwithout, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurableidea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man todart his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of allbrutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeallyincapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlativelycompetent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack. But beall this as it may, certain it is, that with the mad secret of hisunabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailedupon the present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing objectof hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances onshore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soonwould their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship fromsuch a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, theprofit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intenton an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing withcurses Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too,chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals-morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtueor rightmindedness in Starbuck, the invunerable jollity ofindifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervadingmediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed speciallypicked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to hismonomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly respondedto the old man's ire- by what evil magic their souls werepossessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the WhiteWhale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came tobe- what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconsciousunderstandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might haveseemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,- all this toexplain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. Thesubterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whitherleads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick?Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of aseventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to theabandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush toencounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but thedeadliest ill.
Chapter 42. The Whiteness of The Whale
What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, attimes, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid. Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick,which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul somealarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horrorconcerning him, which at times by its intensity completelyoverpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nighineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in acomprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that aboveall things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here;and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else allthese chapters might be naught. Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhancesbeauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as inmarbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have insome way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; eventhe barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord ofthe White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptionsof dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the samesnow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flagbearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the greatAustrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having forthe imperial color the same imperial hue; and though thispre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving thewhite man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though,besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant ofgladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day;and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this samehue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- theinnocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Menof America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepestpledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies themajesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes tothe daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds;though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions ithas been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; bythe Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held theholiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jovehimself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though tothe noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dogwas by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless,faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send tothe Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; andthough directly from the Latin word for white, all Christianpriests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, thealb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holypomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in thecelebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St.John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and thefourand-twenty elders stand clothed in white before thegreat-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white likewool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever issweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusivesomething in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more ofpanic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood. This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought ofwhiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupledwith any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to thefurthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the whiteshark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makesthem the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness itis which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsomethan terrific, to the dumb
gloating of their aspect. So that notthe fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courageas the white-shrouded bear or shark.* * With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged byhim who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is notthe whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerablehideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightenedhideousness, it might be said, only rises from the circumstance,that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature standsinvested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence,by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds, thePolar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But evenassuming all this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness,you would not have that intensified terror. As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of reposein that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangelytallies with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. Thispeculiarity is most vividly hit by the French in the name theybestow upon that fish. The Romish mass for the dead begins with"Requiem eternam" (eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating themass itself, and any other funeral music. Now, in allusion to thewhite, silent stillness of death in this shark, and the milddeadliness of his habits, the French call him Requin. Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds ofspiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantomsails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell;but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature.* * I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during aprolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From myforenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; andthere, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thingof unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. Atintervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if toembrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shookit. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghostin supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes,methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abrahambefore the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white,its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lostthe miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long Igazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, thethings that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; andturning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied.Goney! never had heard that name before; is it conceivable thatthis glorious thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! Butsome time after, I learned that goney was some seaman's name foralbatross. So that by no possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhymehave had aught to do with those mystical impressions which weremine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I thenread the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, insaying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter thenoble merit of the poem and the poet. I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of thebird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the moreevinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds calledgrey albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never withsuch emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.
But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and Iwill tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated onthe sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying alettered, leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time andplace; and then letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leatherntally, meant for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowlflew to join the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoringcherubim! Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is thatof the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-whitecharger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with thedignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage.He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whosepastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains andthe Alleghanies. At their flaming head he westward trooped it likethat chosen star which every evening leads on the hosts of light.The flashing cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail,invested him with housings more resplendent than gold andsilver-beaters could have furnished him. A most imperial andarchangelical apparition of that unfallen, western world, which tothe eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the glories ofthose primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god,bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marchingamid his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts thatendlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whetherwith his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon,the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrilsreddening through his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect hepresented himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the objectof trembling reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from whatstands on legendary record of this noble horse, that it was hisspiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with divineness;and that this divineness had that in it which, though commandingworship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror. But there are other instances where this whiteness loses allthat accessory and strange glory which invests it in the WhiteSteed and Albatross. What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and oftenshocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith andkin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed bythe name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men- has nosubstantive deformity- and yet this mere aspect of all-pervadingwhiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliestabortion. Why should this be so? Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpablebut not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among herforces this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowyaspect, the gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has beendenominated the White Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, hasthe art of human malice omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildlyit heightens the effect of that passage in Froissart, when, maskedin the snowy symbol of their faction, the desperate White Hoods ofGhent murder their bailiff in the market-place! Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience ofall mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of thishue. It cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in theaspect of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marblepallor lingering there; as if indeed that pallor were as much likethe badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortaltrepidation here. And from that pallor of the dead, we borrow theexpressive hue of the
shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in oursuperstitions do we fail to throw the same snowy mantle round ourphantoms; all ghosts rising in a milk-white fog- Yea, while theseterrors seize us, let us add, that even the king of terrors, whenpersonified by the evangelist, rides on his pallid horse. Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand orgracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in itsprofoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiarapparition to the soul. But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortalman to account for it? To analyze it, would seem impossible. Canwe, then, by the citation of some of those instances wherein thisthing of whiteness- though for the time either wholly or in greatpart stripped of all direct associations calculated to import to itaught fearful, but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the samesorcery, however modified;- can we thus hope to light upon somechance clue to conduct us to the hidden cause we seek? Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals tosubtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another intothese halls. And though, doubtless, some at least of theimaginative impressions about to be presented may have been sharedby most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of them at thetime, and therefore may not be able to recall them now. Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be butloosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does thebare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary,speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast andhooded with new-fallen snow? Or to the unread, unsophisticatedProtestant of the Middle American States, why does the passingmention of a White Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyelessstatue in the soul? Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriorsand kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes theWhite Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imaginationof an untravelled American, than those other storied structures,its neighbors- the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And thosesublimer towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, inpeculiar moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul atthe bare mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia's BlueRidge is full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why,irrespective of all latitudes and longitudes, does the name of theWhite Sea exert such a spectralness over the fancy, while that ofthe Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal thoughts of long lacquered mildafternoons on the waves, followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiestof sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purelyaddressed to the fancy, why, in reading the old fairy tales ofCentral Europe, does "the tall pale man" of the Hartz forests,whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the green ofthe groves- why is this phantom more terrible than all the whoopingimps of the Blocksburg? Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-topplingearthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor thetearlessness of and skies that never rain; nor the sight of herwide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses alladroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburbanavenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed packof cards;- it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima,the strangest, saddest city thou
can'st see. For Lima has taken thewhite veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of herwoe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new;admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads overher broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes itsown distortions. I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon ofwhiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggeratingthe terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginativemind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulnessto another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon,especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching tomuteness or universality. What I mean by these two statements mayperhaps be respectively elucidated by the following examples. First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreignlands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts tovigilance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all hisfaculties; but under precisely similar circumstances, let him becalled from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnightsea of milky whiteness- as if from encircling headlands shoals ofcombed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent,superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters ishorrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the lead assures him he isstill off soundings; heart and helm they both go down; he neverrests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is the marinerwho will tell thee, "Sir, it was not so much the fear of strikinghidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirredme?" Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of thesnowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in themere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at suchvast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness itwould be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitude. Much the same isit with the backwoodsman of the West, who with comparativeindifference views an unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow,no shadow of tree or twig to break the fixed trance of whiteness.Not so the sailor, beholding the scenery of the Antarctic seas;where at times, by some infernal trick of legerdemain in the powersof frost and air, he, shivering and half shipwrecked, instead ofrainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, views what seems aboundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean ice monumentsand splintered crosses. But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter aboutwhiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thousurrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael. Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peacefulvalley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey- why is itthat upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robebehind him, so that he cannot even see it, but only smells its wildanimal muskiness- why will he start, snort, and with bursting eyespaw the ground in phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance inhim of any gorings of wild creatures in his green northern home, sothat the strange muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anythingassociated with the experience of former perils; for what knows he,this New England colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon? No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinctof the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands ofmiles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk,
therending, goring bison herds are as present as to the deserted wildfoal of the prairies, which this instant they may be trampling intodust. Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleakrustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolateshiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies; all these, toIshmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightenedcolt! Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which themystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt,somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspectsthis visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres wereformed in fright. But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness,and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and morestrange and far more portentous- why, as we have seen, it is atonce the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the veryveil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, theintensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind. Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartlessvoids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us frombehind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the whitedepths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness isnot so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at thesame time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons thatthere is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a widelandscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which weshrink? And when we consider that other theory of the naturalphilosophers, that all other earthly hues- every stately or lovelyemblazoning- the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, andthe gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks ofyoung girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actuallyinherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that alldeified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurementscover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceedfurther, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which producesevery one of her hues, the great principle of light, for everremains white or colorless in itself, and if operating withoutmedium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses,with its own blank tinge- pondering all this, the palsied universelies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, whorefuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so thewretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroudthat wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things theAlbino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
Chapter 43. Hark!
"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco? It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen werestanding in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water buttsin the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In thismanner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing,for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck,they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand tohand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by theoccasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasinglyadvancing keel.
It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of thecordon, whose post was near the afterhatches, whispered to hisneighbor, a Cholo, the words above. "Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?" "Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?" "There it is again- under the hatches- don't you hear it- acough- it sounded like a cough." "Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket." "There again- there it is!- it sounds like two or three sleepersturning over, now!" "Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soakedbiscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye- nothing else.Look to the bucket!" "Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears." "Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the oldQuakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket;you're the chap." "Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there issomebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck;and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heardStubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something ofthat sort in the wind." "Tish! the bucket!"
Chapter 44. The Chart
Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after thesquall that took place on the night succeeding that wildratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen himgo to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkledroll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him on hisscrewed-down table. Then seating himself before it, you would haveseen him intently study the various lines and shadings which theremet his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace additionalcourses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he wouldrefer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set downthe seasons and places in which, on various former voyages ofvarious ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen. While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chainsover his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, andfor ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon hiswrinkled brow, till it almost seemed that while he himself wasmarking out lines and courses on the wrinkled charts, someinvisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses upon the deeplymarked chart of his forehead. But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude ofhis cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every nightthey were brought out; almost every night some pencil marks
wereeffaced, and others were substituted. For with the charts of allfour oceans before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents andeddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of thatmonomaniac thought of his soul. Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of theleviathans, it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seekout one solitary creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet.But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides andcurrents; and thereby calculating the driftings of the spermwhale's food; and, also calling to mind the regular, ascertainedseasons for hunting him in particular latitudes; could arrive atreasonable surmises, almost approaching to certainties, concerningthe timeliest day to be upon this or that ground in search of hisprey. So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness ofthe sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many huntersbelieve that, could he be closely observed and studied throughoutthe world; were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleetcarefully collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would befound to correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoalsor the flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been madeto construct elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.* * Since the above was written, the statement is happily borneout by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of theNational Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By thatcircular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in course ofcompletion; and portions of it are presented in the circular. "Thischart divides the ocean into districts of five degrees of latitudeby five degrees of longitude; perpendicularly through each of whichdistricts are twelve columns for the twelve months; andhorizontally through each of which districts are three lines; oneto show the number of days that have been spent in each month inevery district, and the two others to show the number of days inwhich whales, sperm or right, have been seen." Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground toanother, the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct- say,rather, secret intelligence from the Deity- mostly swim in veins,as they are called; continuing their way along a given ocean-linewith such undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailed hercourse, by any chart, with one tithe of such marvellous precision.Though, in these cases, the direction taken by any one whale bestraight as a surveyor's parallel, and though the line of advancebe strictly confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet thearbitrary vein in which at these times he is said to swim,generally embraces some few miles in width (more or less, as thevein is presumed to expand or contract); but never exceeds thevisual sweep from the whale-ship's mast-heads, when circumspectlygliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at particularseasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating whalesmay with great confidence be looked for. And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well knownseparate feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey;but in crossing the widest expanses of water between those groundshe could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as eventhen not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting. There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entanglehis delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in thereality, perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have theirregular
seasons for particular grounds, yet in general you cannotconclude that the herds which haunted such and such a latitude orlongitude this year, say, will turn out to be identically the samewith those that were found there the preceding season; though thereare peculiar and unquestionable instances where the contrary ofthis has proved true. In general, the same remark, only within aless wide limit, applies to the solitaries and hermits among thematured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby Dick had in aformer year been seen, for example, on what is called the Seychelleground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast;yet it did not follow that were the Pequod to visit either of thosespots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infalliblyencounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding-grounds,where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed onlyhis casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not hisplaces of prolonged abode. And where Ahab's chances ofaccomplishing his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion hasonly been made to whatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospectswere his, ere a particular set time or place were attained, whenall possibilities would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondlythought, every possibility the next thing to a certainty. Thatparticular set time and place were conjoined in the one technicalphrase- the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, for severalconsecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried,lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annualround, loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of theZodiac. There it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters withthe white whale had taken place; there the waves were storied withhis deeds; there also was that tragic spot where the monomaniac oldman had found the awful motive to his vengeance. But in thecautious comprehensiveness and unloitering vigilance with whichAhab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering hunt, he wouldnot permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one crowning factabove mentioned, however flattering it might be to those hopes; norin the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize hisunquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest. Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginningof the Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enableher commander to make the great passage southwards, double CapeHorn, and then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in theequatorial Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must waitfor the next ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod'ssailing had, perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a viewto this very complexion of things. Because, an interval of threehundred and sixty-five days and nights was before him; an intervalwhich, instead of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in amiscellaneous hunt; if by chance the White Whale, spending hisvacation in seas far remote from his periodical feeding-grounds,should turn up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in theBengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by hisrace. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor-Westers, Harmattans, Traders;any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into thedevious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigatingwake. But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly,seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundlessocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thoughtcapable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as awhite-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares ofConstantinople? Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick,and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable. And have Inot tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as afterporing over his charts till long after midnight he would throwhimself back in reveries- tallied him, and shall he escape? Hisbroad fins are bored, and scalloped out like
a lost sheep's are!And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till aweariness and faintness of pondering came over him! and in the openair of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God!what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed withone unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands;and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting andintolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his ownintense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashingof phrensies, and whirled them round and round and round in hisblazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot becameinsufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, thesespiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and achasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames andlightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap downamong them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wildcry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahabwould burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed thatwas on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being theunsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright at hisown resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity. For, atsuch times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunterof the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was notthe agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. Thelatter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and insleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind,which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, itspontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of thefrantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer anintegral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with thesoul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding upall his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; thatpurpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself againstgods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being ofits own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common vitalityto which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbiddenand unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that glaredout of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, wasfor the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being,a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to color,and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thythoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intensethinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon thatheart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.
Chapter 45. The Affidavit
So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and,indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting andcurious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoingchapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will befound in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to bestill further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to beadequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulitywhich a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in someminds, as to the natural verity of the main points of thisaffair. I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; butshall be content to produce the desired impression by separatecitations of items, practically or reliably known to me as awhaleman; and from these citations, I take it- the conclusion aimedat will naturally follow of itself.
First: I have personally known three instances where a whale,after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and,after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been againstruck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both markedby the same private cypher, have been taken from the body. In theinstance where three years intervened between the flinging of thetwo harpoons; and I think it may have been something more thanthat; the man who darted them happening, in the interval, to go ina trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there, joined adiscovery party, and penetrated far into the interior, where hetravelled for a period of nearly two years, often endangered byserpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the othercommon perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknownregions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been onits travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe,brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to nopurpose. This man and this whale again came together, and the onevanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known three instancessimilar to this; that is in two of them I saw the whales struck;and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respectivemarks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In thethree-year instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat bothtimes, first and last, and the last time distinctly recognized apeculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's eye, which I hadobserved there three years previous. I say three years, but I ampretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, then,which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of manyother instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there isno good ground to impeach. Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, howeverignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have beenseveral memorable historical instances where a particular whale inthe ocean has been at distant times and places popularlycognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was not altogetherand originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguishedfrom other whales; for however peculiar in that respect any chancewhale may be, they soon put an end to his peculiarities by killinghim, and boiling him down into a peculiarly valuable oil. No: thereason was this: that from the fatal experiences of the fisherythere hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whaleas there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermenwere content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulinswhen he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, withoutseeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poordevils ashore that happen to known an irascible great man, theymake distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest ifthey pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summarythump for their presumption. But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy greatindividual celebrity- nay, you may call it an oceanwide renown; notonly was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastlestories after death, but he was admitted into all the rights,privileges, and distinctions of a name; had as much a name indeedas Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thou famedleviathan, scarred like a iceberg, who so long did'st lurk in theOriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from thepalmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thouterror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity ofthe Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whoselofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-whitecross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilianwhale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics uponthe back! In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to thestudents of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classicscholar.
But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after atvarious times creating great havoc among the boats of differentvessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out,chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up theiranchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting outthrough the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in hismind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, theheadmost warrior of the Indian King Philip. I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, tomake mention of one or two other things, which to me seemimportant, as in printed form establishing in all respects thereasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, moreespecially the catastrophe. For this is one of those dishearteninginstances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. Soignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and mostpalpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching theplain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they mightscout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and moredetestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of thegeneral perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like afixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency withwhich they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty ofthe actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, everfinds a public record at home, however transient and immediatelyforgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor fellow there,who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-line off the coast ofNew Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by thesounding leviathan- do you suppose that that poor fellow's namewill appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow atyour breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular betweenhere and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might becalled regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I willtell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to thePacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships, everyone of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more thanone, and three that had each lost a boat's crew. For God's sake, beeconomical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, butat least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it. Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that awhale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have everfound that when narrating to them some specific example of thistwo-fold enormousness, they have significantly complimented me uponmy facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more ideaof being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of theplagues of Egypt. But fortunately the special point I here seek can be establishedupon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this:The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing,and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the SpermWhale has done it. First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, ofNantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she sawspouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of spermwhales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when,suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued fromthe shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing hisforehead
against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than"ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plankof her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part ofthe crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home atlast, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in commandof another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknownrocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost,and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never attempted it since.At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seenOwen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of thetragedy; I have read his plain and faithful narrative; I haveconversed with his son; and all this within a few miles of thescene of the catastrophe.* * The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every factseemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chancewhich directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon theship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according totheir direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by beingmade ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects forthe shock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made werenecessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicatedresentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we hadjust before entered, and in which we had struck three of hiscompanions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings." Again:"At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, allhappening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time,impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on thepart of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall),induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion." Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship,during a black night an open boat, when almost despairing ofreaching any hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waterswere nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadfultempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinarysubjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to amoment's thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspectand revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, untilday again made its appearance." In another place- p.45,- he speaks of "the mysterious and mortalattack of the animal." Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but theauthentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced toencounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heardcasual allusions to it. Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J-- thencommanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened tobe dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucketship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turningupon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching theamazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemenpresent. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale couldso smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much asa thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weekslater, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft forValparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale,that begged a few moments' confidential business with him. Thatbusiness consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack,that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest portto heave
down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I considerthe Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was notSaul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tellyou, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense. I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a littlecircumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof.Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the RussianAdmiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginningof the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins hisseventeenth chapter: "By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and thenext day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. Theweather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that wewere obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had verylittle wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale fromthe northwest sprang up. An uncommonly large whale, the body ofwhich was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface ofthe water, but was not perceived by any one on board till themoment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him,so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. Wewere thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this giganticcreature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at leastout of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether,while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck,concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this wesaw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity.Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whetheror not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but wefound that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured." Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the shipin question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusualadventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village ofDorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his.I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage inLangsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was byno means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast,and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in whichhe sailed from home. In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, sofull, too, of honest wonders- the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one ofancient Dampier's old chums- I found a little matter set down solike that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbearinserting it here for a corroborative example, if such beneeded. Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as hecalls the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says,"about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundredand fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt aterrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that theycould hardly tell where they were or what to think; but every onebegan to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so suddenand violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struckagainst a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we castthe lead, and sounded, but found no ground. ... The suddenness ofthe shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of themen were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay withhis head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then goeson to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiatethe imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere aboutthat time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land.But
I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hourof the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whalevertically bumping the hull from beneath. I might proceed with several more examples, one way or anotherknown to me, of the great power and malice at times of the spermwhale. In more than one instance, he has been known, not only tochase the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue theship itself, and long withstand all the lances hurled at him fromits decks. The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on thathead; and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have beenexamples where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, ina calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there! the whaletowing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off witha cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale,once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so oftenwith blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destructionto his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquentindication of his character, that upon being attacked he willfrequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansionfor several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with onlyone more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and mostsignificant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not onlyis the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plainfacts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels)are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time wesay amen with Solomon- Verily there is nothing new under thesun. In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christianmagistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian wasEmperor and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the historyof his own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the bestauthorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy andunexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars,not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned. Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during theterm of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster wascaptured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, afterhaving destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a periodof more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantialhistory cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason itshould be. Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is notmentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons,he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think asperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fanciedthat the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterraneanand the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain thatthose seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the presentconstitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort.But further investigations have recently proved to me, that inmodern times there have been isolated instances of the presence ofthe sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority,that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navyfound the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of warreadily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could,by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into thePropontis. In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiarsubstance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the rightwhale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of thesperm whalesquid or cuttle-fish-lurks at the bottom of that sea,because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort,have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly put thesestatements
together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearlyperceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius'ssea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a RomanEmperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.
Chapter 46. Surmises
Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in allhis thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture ofMoby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal intereststo that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was bynature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman'sways, altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of thevoyage. Or at least if this were otherwise, there were not wantingother motives much more influential with him. It would be refiningtoo much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that hisvindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extendeditself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that the moremonsters he slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances thateach subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated onehe hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, therewere still additional considerations which, though not so strictlyaccording with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by nomeans incapable of swaying him. To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all toolsused in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out oforder. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendencyin some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did notcover the complete spiritual man any more than mere corporealsuperiority involves intellectual mastership; for to the purelyspiritual, the intellectual but stand in sort of corporealrelation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will were Ahab's,so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain; still he knewthat for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred hiscaptain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himselffrom it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long intervalwould elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that longinterval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open relapses ofrebellion against his captain's leadership, unless some ordinary,prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear uponhim. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting MobyDick was noways more significantly manifested than in hissuperlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for thepresent, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strangeimaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the fullterror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscurebackground (for few men's courage is proof against protractedmeditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their longnight watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things tothink of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously thesavage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet allsailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable-they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale itsfickleness- and when retained for any object remote and blank inthe pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, itis above all things requisite that temporary interests andemployments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended forthe final dash. Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strongemotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times areevanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of themanufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that theWhite Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, andplaying round their savageness even breeds a certain
generousknight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they givechase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common,daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusadersof old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles ofland to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committingburglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites bythe way. Had they been strictly held to their one final andromantic object- that final and romantic object, too many wouldhave turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thoughtAhab, of all hopes of cash- aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; butlet some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them,and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them,this same cash would soon cashier Ahab. Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive morerelated to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, andperhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purposeof the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in sodoing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerablecharge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral andlegal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, couldrefuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest fromhim the command. From even the barely hinted imputation ofusurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressedimpression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been mostanxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist inhis own predominating brain and heart and hand, backed by aheedful, closely calculating attention to every minute atmosphericinfluence which it was possible for his crew to be subjectedto. For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic tobe verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still ina good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of thePequod's voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that,but force himself to evince all his well known passionate interestin the general pursuit of his profession. Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing thethree mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, andnot omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not longwithout reward.
Chapter 47. The Mat-Maker
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazilylounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into thelead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weavingwhat is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat.So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene,and such an incantation of revelry lurked in the air, that eachsilent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self. I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat.As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marlinebetween the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for theshuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid hisheavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off uponthe water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I sayso strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship andall over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of thesword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and Imyself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at theFates. There
lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but onesingle, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibrationmerely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of otherthreads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thoughtI, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destinyinto these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive,indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, orcrookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and bythis difference in the concluding blow producing a correspondingcontrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage'ssword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warpand woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance- aye, chance,free will, and necessity- wise incompatible- all interweavinglyworking together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swervedfrom its ultimate course- its every alternating vibration, indeed,only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttlebetween given threads; and chance, though restrained in its playwithin the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motionsdirected by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance byturns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events. Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a soundso strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that theball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up atthe clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in thecross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body wasreaching eagerly forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, andat brief sudden intervals he continued his cries. To be sure thesame sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over theseas, from hundreds of whalemen's look -outs perched as high in theair; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry havederived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego theIndian's. As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildlyand eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought himsome prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by thosewild cries announcing their coming. "There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! sheblows!" "Where-away?" "On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!" Instantly all was commotion. The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the sameundeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemendistinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus. "There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whalesdisappeared. "Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!" Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported theexact minute to Ahab.
The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gentlyrolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone downheading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them againdirectly in advance of our bows. For that singular craft at timesevinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in onedirection, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface,mills around, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter- thisdeceitfulness of his could not now be in action; for there was noreason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in anyway alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of the menselected for shipkeepers- that is, those not appointed to theboats, by this time relieved the Indian at the mainmast head. Thesailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs werefixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard wasbacked, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphirebaskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crewswith one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantlypoised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war's menabout to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship. But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard thattook every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at darkAhab, who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed freshformed out of air.
Chapter 48. The First Lowering
The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on theother side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, werecasting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there.This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, thoughtechnically called the captain's, on account of its hanging fromthe starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows wastall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from itssteel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cottonfunereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same darkstuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening whiteplaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and roundupon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figurewere of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of theaboriginal natives of the Manillas;- a race notorious for a certaindiabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposedto be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water ofthe devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to beelsewhere. While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon thesestrangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at theirhead, "All ready there, Fedallah?" "Ready," was the half-hissed reply. "Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Loweraway there, I say." Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazementthe men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in theblocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while,with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation,the sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side intothe tossed boats below.
Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when afourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under thestern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standingerect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, tospread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water.But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah andhis crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not thecommand. "Captain Ahab?-" said Starbuck. "Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats.Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward!" "Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping roundhis great steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew. "There!-there!- there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!- layback! "Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy." "Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all beforenow. Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco hereof it? What say we, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask." "Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, mylittle ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew,some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why don't you breakyour backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps inyonder boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help usnever mind from where the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull;never mind the brimstone devils are good fellows enough. So, so;there you are now; that's the stroke for a thousand pounds; that'sthe stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of spermoil, my heroes! Three cheers, men- all hearts alive! Easy, easy;don't be in a hurry- don't be in a hurry. Why don't you snap youroars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then:-softly, softly! That's it- that's it! long and strong. Give waythere, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; yeare all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye?pull, can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons andginger-cakes don't ye pull?- pull and break something! pull, andstart your eyes out! Here," whipping out the sharp knife from hisgirdle; "every mother's son of ye draw his knife, and pull with theblade between his teeth. That's it- that's it. Now ye do something;that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her- start her, mysilverspoons! Start her, marling-spikes!" Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because hehad rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, andespecially in inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must notsuppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flewinto downright passions with his congregation. Not at all; andtherein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the mostterrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded offun most terri and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merelyas a spice to the fun, that no oarsmen could hear such queerinvocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for themere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy andindolent himself, so loungingly managed his steeringoar, and sobroadly gaped- open-mouthed at times- that the mere sight of such ayawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charmupon the crew. Then again, Stubb was
one of those odd sort ofhumorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as toput all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them. In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pullingobliquely across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the twoboats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. "Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir,if ye please!" "Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch ashe spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; hisface set like a flint from Stubb's. "What think ye of those yellow boys, sir! "Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong,strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loudagain: "A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, mylads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all yourcrew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There'shogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for.(Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty;duty and profit hand in hand." "Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when theboats diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye,and that's what he went into the after hold for, so often, asDoughBoy long suspected. They were hidden down there. The WhiteWhale's at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped!All right! Give way men! It ain't the White Whale to-day! Giveway!" Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a criticalinstant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had notunreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some ofthe ship's company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some timeprevious got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then,this had in some small measure prepared them for the event. It tookoff the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all this andStubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance, they werefor the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the affairstill left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as todark Ahab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning. Forme, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creepingon board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as theenigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah. Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided thefurthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; acircumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Thosetiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; likefive trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes ofstrength, which periodically started the boat along the water likea horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As forFedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrownaside his black jacket, and displayed his naked chest with thewhole part of his body above the gunwale, clearly cut against thealternating depressions of the watery horizon; while at the otherend of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown halfbackward into the air, as if to counterbalance any tendency totrip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in athousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All
atonce the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remainedfixed, while the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked.Boat and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spreadboats in the rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularlysettled bodily down into the blue, thus giving no distantlydiscernible token of the movement, though from his closer vicinityAhab had observed it. "Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou,Queequeg, stand up!" Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, thesavage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed offtowards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewiseupon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularlyplatformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coollyand adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chipof a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlesslystill; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of theloggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and risingsome two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used forcatching turns with the whale line. Its top is not more spaciousthan the palm of a man's hand, and standing upon such a base asthat, Flask seemed perched at the mast-head of some ship which hadsunk to all but her trucks. But little King-Post was small andshort, and at the same time little King-Post was full of a largeand tall ambition, so that this logger head stand-point of his didby no means satisfy King-Post. "I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let meonto that." Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steadyhis way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteeredhis lofty shoulders for a pedestal. "Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?" "That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only Iwish you fifty feet taller." Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planksof the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented hisflat palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on hishearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself shouldtoss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dryon his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with onelifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean against andsteady himself by. At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with whatwondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintainan erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the mostriotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange tosee him giddily perched upon the logger head itself, under suchcircumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted upon giganticDaggoo was yet more curious; for sustaining himself with a cool,indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negroto every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On hisbroad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearerlooked nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous,ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience;but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro's lordlychest. So
have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the livingmagnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and herseasons for that. Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazingsolicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regularsoundings, not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that werethe case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolvedto solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew itfrom his hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather. Heloaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end; buthardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of hishand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting towindward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from hiserect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry,"Down, down all, and give way!- there they are!" To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would havebeen visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenishwhite water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it,and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud fromwhite rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated andtingled, as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates ofiron. Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partiallybeneath a thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seenin advance of all the other indications, the puffs of vapor theyspouted, seemed their forerunning couriers and detached flyingoutriders. All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot oftroubled water and air. But it bade far outstrip them; it flew onand on, a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid streamfrom the hills. "Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowestpossible but intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while thesharp fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow,almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnaclecompasses. He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did hiscrew say anything to him. Only the silence of the boat was atintervals startlingly pierced by one of his peculiar whispers, nowharsh with command, now soft with entreaty. How different the loud little King-Post. "Sing out and saysomething, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me,beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I'llsign over to you my Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys; includingwife and children, boys. Lay me on- lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but Ishall go stark, staring mad! See! see that white water!" And soshouting, he pulled his hat from his head, and stamped up and downon it; then picking it up, flirted it far off upon the sea; andfinally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat's stern like acrazed colt from the prairie. "Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who,with his unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between histeeth, at a short distance, followed after- "He's got fits, thatFlask has. Fits? yes, give him fits- that's the very word- pitchfits into 'em. Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper,you know;- merry's the word. Pull, babes- pull, sucklingspull,all. But what the devil are you hurrying about? Softly, softly, andsteadily, my men. Only
pull, and keep pulling; nothing more. Crackall your backbones, and bite your knives in twothat's all. Takeit easy- why don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all yourlivers and lungs!" But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellowcrew of his- these were words best omitted here; for you live underthe blessed light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharksin the audacious seas may give ear to such words, when, withtornado brow, and eyes of red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahableaped after his prey. Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specificallusions of Flask to "that whale," as he called the fictitiousmonster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat'sbow with its tail- these allusions of his were at times so vividand life-like, that they would cause some one or two of his men tosnatch a fearful look over his shoulder. But this was against allrule; for the oarsmen must put out their eyes, and ram a skewerthrough their necks; usages announcing that they must have noorgans but ears; and no limbs but arms, in these criticalmoments. It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells ofthe omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as theyrolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundlessbowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it wouldtip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves,that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the suddenprofound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurringsand goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong,sled-like slide down its other side;- all these, with the cries ofthe headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of theoarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing downupon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after herscreaming brood;- all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit,marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of hisfirst battle; not the dead man's host encountering the firstunknown phantom in the other world;- neither of these can feelstranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for thefirst time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circleof the hunted sperm whale. The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming moreand more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the duncloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longerblended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemedseparating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuckgiving chase to three whales running dead to leeward. Our sail wasnow set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along; the boatgoing with such madness through the water, that the lee oars couldscarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from therow-locks. Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist;neither ship nor boat to be seen. "Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aftthe sheet of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before thesquall comes. There's white water again!- close to! Spring!" Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of usdenoted that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were theyoverheard, when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbucksaid: "Stand up!" and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to hisfeet.
Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and deathperil so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intensecountenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew thatthe imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormouswallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter.Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the wavescurling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enragedserpents. "That's his hump. There, there, give it to him!" whisperedStarbuck. A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the dartediron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came aninvisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed strikingon a ledge; the sail collapsed and exploded; a gush of scaldingvapor shot up near by; something rolled and tumbled like anearthquake beneath us. The whole crew were half suffocated as theywere tossed helter-skelter into the white curdling cream of thesquall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together; andthe whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed.Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing themacross the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There we sat up toour knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, sothat to our downward gazing eyes the suspended craft seemed a coralboat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean. The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklerstogether; the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around uslike a white fire upon the prairie, in which unconsumed, we wereburning; immortal in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed theother boats; as well roar to the live coals down the chimney of aflaming furnace as hail those boats in that storm. Meanwhile thedriving scud, rack, and mist, grew darker with the shadows ofnight; no sign of the ship could be seen. The rising sea forbadeall attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were useless aspropellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. So,cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after manyfailures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; thenstretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as thestandard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holdingup that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness.There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith,hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair. Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship orboat, we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist stillspread over the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom ofthe boat. Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his handto his ear. We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yardshitherto muffled by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer;the thick mists were dimly parted by a huge, vague form.Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as the ship at last loomedinto view, bearing right down upon us within a distance of not muchmore than its length. Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for oneinstant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip atthe base of a cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, andit was seen no more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swamfor it, were dashed against it by the seas, and were at last takenup and safely landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, theother boats had cut loose from their fish and returned to the shipin good time. The ship had given us
up, but was still cruising, ifhaply it might light upon some token of our perishing,- an oar or alance pole.
Chapter 49. The Hyena
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strangemixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe fora vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimlydiscerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody'sexpense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seemsworth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, andbeliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible,never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobblesdown bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties andworryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb;all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-naturedhits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen andunaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I amspeaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extremetribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so thatwhat just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous,now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like theperils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial,desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyageof the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. "Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, tothe deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling offthe water; "Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing oftenhappen?" Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me,he gave me to understand that such things did often happen. "Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up inhis oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr.Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you evermet, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful andprudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale withyour sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman'sdiscretion?" "Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a galeoff Cape Horn." "Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who wasstanding close by; "you are experienced in these things, and I amnot. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in thisfishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pullinghimself back-foremost into death's jaws?" "Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's thelaw. I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whaleface foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint,mind that!" Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberatestatement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squallsand capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep,were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; consideringthat at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whaleI must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat-oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousnessupon the point of
scuttling the craft with his own franticstampings; considering that the particular disaster to our ownparticular boat was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving onto his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering thatStarbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness inthe fishery; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudentStarbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a devil's chase Iwas implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all thingstogether, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make arough draft of my will. "Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shallbe my lawyer, executor, and legatee." It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkeringat their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in theworld more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in mynautical life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremonywas concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; astone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I shouldnow live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after hisresurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeksas the case may be. I survived myself; my death and burial werelocked up in my chest. I looked round me tranquilly andcontentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sittinginside the bars of a snug family vault. Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of myfrock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death anddestruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.
Chapter 50. Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah
"Who would have thought it, Flask!" cried Stubb; "if I had butone leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop theplug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man!" "I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account," saidFlask. "If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be adifferent thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee, andgood part of the other left, you know." "I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw himkneel." Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether,considering the paramount importance of his life to the success ofthe voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize thatlife in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiersoften argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable lifeof his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight. But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect.Considering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in alltimes of dancer; considering that the pursuit of whales is alwaysunder great and extraordinary difficulties; that every individualmoment, indeed, then comprises a peril; under these circumstancesis it wise for any maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? Asa general thing, the joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainlythought not. Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would thinklittle of his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmlessvicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the scene ofaction and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab tohave a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular headsman inthe hunt- above all for Ahab to be supplied with five extra men,
asthat same boat's crew, he well knew that such generous conceitsnever entered the heads of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore hehad not solicited a boat's crew from them, nor had he in any wayhinted his desires on that head. Nevertheless he had taken privatemeasures of his own touching all that matter. Until Cabaco'spublished discovery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though tobe sure when, after being a little while out of port, all hands hadconcluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats forservice; when some time after this Ahab was now and then foundbestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his ownhands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and evensolicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the lineis running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all thiswas observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having anextra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make itbetter withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and alsothe anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, orclumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece inthe boat's bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbingat the whale; when it was observed how often he stood up in thatboat with his solitary knee fixed in the semi-circular depressionin the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel gouged out a littlehere and straightened it a little there; all these things, I say,had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But almosteverybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness inAhab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick;for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortalmonster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involvethe remotest suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to thatboat. Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soonwaned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now andthen such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come upfrom the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man thesefloating outlaws of whalers; and the ships themselves often pick upsuch queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea onplanks, bits of wreck, oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanesejunks, and what not; that Beelzebub himself might climb up the sideand step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it wouldnot create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle. But be all this as it may, certain it is that while thesubordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, thoughstill as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hairturbanedFedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came ina mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie hesoon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes;nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-hinted influence; Heavenknows, but it might have been even authority over him; all thisnone knew, but one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerningFedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people inthe temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly;but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchangingAsiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east ofthe continent- those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries,which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostlyaboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory ofthe first man was a distinct recollection, and all men hisdescendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as realphantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were createdand to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angelsindeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, addthe uncanonical Robbins, indulged in mundane amours.
Chapter 51. The Spirit-Spout
Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod hadslowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; off the Azores;off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off themouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked,watery locality, southerly from St. Helena. It was while gliding through these latter waters that one sereneand moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls ofsilver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed asilvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silveryjet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit upby the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glitteringgod uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For ofthese moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-masthead, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if ithad been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night,not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them.You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this oldOriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and themoon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniforminterval there for several successive nights without uttering asingle sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice washeard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every recliningmariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted inthe rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had thetrump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yetstill they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was amost unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and sodeliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctivelydesired a lowering. Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahabcommanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and everystunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then,with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down beforethe wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrailbreeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant,hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still sherushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling inher- one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly tosome horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab's face that night,you would have thought that in him also two different things werewarring. While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck,every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On lifeand death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped,and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yetthe silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore hesaw it once, but not a second time. This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when,some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was againannounced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail toovertake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. Andso it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but towonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, orstarlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one wholeday, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at every distinctrepetition to be advancing still further and further in our van,this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on. Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and inaccordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in manythings invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamenwho swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remotetimes, or in however
far apart latitudes and longitudes, thatunnearable spout was cast by one selfsame whale; and that whale,Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiardread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherouslybeckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn roundupon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savageseas. These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived awondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, inwhich, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked adevilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seasso wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to ourvengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-likeprow. But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds beganhowling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubledseas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed tothe blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, likeshowers of silver chips, the foamflakes flew over her bulwarks;then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place tosights more dismal than before. Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither andthither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutablesea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of thesebirds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long timeobstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship somedrifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, andtherefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heavedand heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vasttides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguishand remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred. Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, ascalled of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences thatbefore had attended us, we found ourselves launched into thistormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls andthese fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without anyhaven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. Butcalm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain offeathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before, thesolitary jet would at times be descried. During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assumingfor the time the almost continual command of the drenched anddangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldomthan ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these,after everything above and aloft has been secured, nothing more canbe done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captainand crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leginserted into its accustomed hole, and with one hand firmlygrasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand gazing deadto windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow would allbut congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew drivenfrom the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas thatburstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarksin the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves,each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to therail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words werespoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors inwax, day after day tore on through all the swift madness andgladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness ofhumanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still insilence the men swung in the
bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood upto the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose hewould not seek that respose in his hammock. Never could Starbuckforget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into thecabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyessitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain andhalf-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time beforeemerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. Onthe table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides andcurrents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swungfrom his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the headwas thrown back so that the closed eves were pointed towards theneedle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling.* * The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because withoutgoing to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, caninform himself of the course of the ship. Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping inthis gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.
Chapter 52. The Albatross
South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a goodcruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney(Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perchat the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight soremarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries- a whaler at sea,and long absent from home. As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached likethe skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, thisspectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust,while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches oftrees furred over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. Awild sight it was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those threemast-heads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn andbepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years ofcruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayedand swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when the ship slowlyglided close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh toeach other that we might almost have leaped from the mast-heads ofone ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-lookingfishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word toour own look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard frombelow. "Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?" But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks,was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fellfrom his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he invain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship wasstill increasing the distance between us. While in various silentways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance ofthis ominous incident at the first mere mention of the WhiteWhale's name to another ship, Ahab for a moment paused; it almostseemed as though he would have lowered a boat to board thestranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But takingadvantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet,and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was aNantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed- "Ahoy there!This is the
Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address allfuture letters to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, ifI am not at home, tell them to address them to-" At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly,then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of smallharmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimmingby our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, andranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger's flanks. Thoughin the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often beforehave noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, theveriest trifles capriciously carry meanings. "Swim away from me, do ye?" murmured Ahab, gazing over into thewater. There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyedmore of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had everbefore evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had beenholding the ship in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried outin his old lion voice,- "Up helm! Keep her off round theworld!" Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proudfeelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Onlythrough numberless perils to the very point whence we started,where those that we left behind secure, were all the time beforeus. Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward wecould for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweetand strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, thenthere were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those farmysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantomthat, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; whilechasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on inbarren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
Chapter 53. The Gam
The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whalerwe had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But evenhad this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, haveboarded her- judging by his subsequent conduct on similaroccasions- if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, hehad obtained a negative answer to the question he put. For, as iteventually turned out, he cared not to consort, even for fiveminutes, with any stranger captain, except he could contribute someof that information he so absorbingly sought. But all this mightremain inadequately estimated, were not something said here of thepeculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other inforeign seas, and especially on a common cruisingground. If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, orthe equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casuallyencountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain,for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; andstopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps,sitting down for a while and resting in concert: then, how muchmore natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and SalisburyPlains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at theends of the earth- off lone Fanning's Island, or the far awayKing's Mills; how much more natural, I say, that under suchcircumstances these ships should not only
interchange hails, butcome into still closer, more friendly and sociable contact. Andespecially would this seem to be a matter of course, in the case ofvessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, officers, and nota few of the men are personally known to each other; andconsequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talkabout. For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, hasletters on board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her havesome papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on herblurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, theoutward-bound ship would receive the latest whaling intelligencefrom the cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing ofthe utmost importance to her. And in degree, all this will holdtrue concerning whaling vessels crossing each other's track on thecruising-ground itself, even though they are equally long absentfrom home. For one of them may have received a transfer of lettersfrom some third, and now far remote vessel; and some of thoseletters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. Besides,they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat.For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors,but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from acommon pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils. Nor would difference of country make any very essentialdifference; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, asis the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, fromthe small number of English whalers, such meetings do not veryoften occur, and when they do occur there. is too apt to be a sortof shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather reserved,and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybodybut himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kindof metropolitan superiority over the American whalers; regardingthe long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, asa sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority in the Englishwhaleman does really consist, it would be hard to say, seeing thatthe Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than all theEnglish, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless littlefoible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does nottake much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a fewfoibles himself. So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea,the whalers have most reason to be sociable- and they are so.Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other's wake in themidAtlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a singleword of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high seas,like a brace of dandies in Broadway; and all the time indulging,perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other's rig. As forMen-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, they first go throughsuch a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such a ducking ofensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down heartygood-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touchingSlave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, theyrun away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates,when they chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hailis- "How many skulls?"- the same way that whalers hail- "How manybarrels?" And that question once answered, pirates straightwaysteer apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, anddon't like to see overmuch of each other's villanouslikenesses. But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable,sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when shemeets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has
a"Gam," a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that theynever heard of the name even; and if by chance they should hear ofit, they only grin at it, and repeat gamesome stuff about"spouters" and "blubber-boilers," and such like prettyexclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also allPirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish sucha scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it wouldbe hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I shouldlike to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiarglory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed;but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated inthat odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superioraltitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be highlifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solidbasis to stand on. But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index-finger runningup and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word,Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's arkdoes not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has nowfor many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousandtrue born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should beincorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedlydefine it. GAM. NOUN- A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships,generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, theyexchange visits hy boats' crews, the two captains remaining, forthe time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on theother. There is another little item about Gamming which must not beforgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiaritiesof detail; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, orslave ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, healways sits in the stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimescushioned seat there, and often steers himself with a pretty littlemilliner's tiller decorated with gay cords and ribbons. But thewhale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, andno tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling captains werewheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen inpatent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits ofany such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat'screw must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer orharpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman uponthe occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulledoff to his visit all standing like a pine tree. And often you willnotice that being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible worldresting on him from the sides of the two ships, this standingcaptain is all alive to the importance of sustaining his dignity bymaintaining his legs. Nor is this any very easy matter; for in hisrear is the immense projecting steering oar hitting him now andthen in the small of his back, the after-oar reciprocating byrapping his knees in front. He is thus completely wedged before andbehind, and can only expand himself sideways by settling down onhis stretched legs; but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat willoften go far to topple him, because length of foundation is nothingwithout corresponding breadth. Merely make a spread angle of twopoles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never doin plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, Isay, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself theslightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands;indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generallycarries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps beinggenerally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there forballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, wellauthenticated ones too, where the captain has
been known for anuncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say- to seizehold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there like grimdeath.
Chapter 54. The Town-Ho's Story
(As told at the Golden Inn) The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round aboutthere, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway,where you meet more travellers than in any other part. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that anotherhomeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She wasmanned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensuedshe gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interestin the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance ofthe Town-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with thewhale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those socalled judgments of God which at times are said to overtake somemen. This latter circumstance, with its own particularaccompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of thetragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of CaptainAhab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown tothe captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property ofthree confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems,communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, butthe following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed somuch of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not wellwithhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did thisthing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the fullknowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so,were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret amongthemselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod'smain-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread withthe story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of thisstrange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. * The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from themast-head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagosterrapin. For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I oncenarrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends,one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of theGolden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro andSebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence theinterluding questions they occasionally put, and which are dulyanswered at the time. "Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I amabout rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler ofNantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days'sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She wassomewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handlingthe pumps according to daily usage, it was observed that she mademore water in her hold than common. They supposed a sword-fish hadstabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reasonfor believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes;and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak notbeing then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they couldnot find it after
searching the hold as low down as was possible inrather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, themariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; but nogood luck came; more days went by and not only was the leak yetundiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that nowtaking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for thenearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove outand repaired. "Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonestchance favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founderby the way, because his pumps were of the best, and beingperiodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of hiscould easily keep the ship free; never mind if the leak shoulddouble on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage beingattended by very prosperous breezes, the Town-Ho had all butcertainly arrived in perfect safety at her port without theoccurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the brutaloverbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterlyprovoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado fromBuffalo. "'Lakeman!- Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where isBuffalo?' said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat ofgrass. "On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but- I crave yourcourtesy- may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now,gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well nighas large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callaoto far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of ourAmerica, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebootingimpressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in theirinterflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,-Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,- possessan ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean's noblesttraits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes.They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as thePolynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two greatcontrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritimeapproaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East,dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon bybatteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; theyhave heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals,they yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red paintedfaces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leaguesare flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pinesstand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those samewoods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatureswhose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror thepaved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebagovillages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the armedcruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they areswept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lashthe salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight ofland, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight shipwith all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander,Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much ofan audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his infancyhe may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse athis maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed ouraustere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quiteas vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman,fresh from the latitudes of buckhorn handled Bowie-knives. Yet wasthis Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and thisLakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet byinflexible firmness, only tempered by that common
decency of humanrecognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, thisSteelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At allevents, he had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and mademad, and Steelkilt- but, gentlemen, you shall hear. "It was not more than a day or two at the furthest afterpointing her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho's leakseemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or moreat the pumps every day. You must know that in a settled andcivilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some skippers thinklittle of pumping their whole way across it; though of a still,sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to forget hisduty in that respect, the probability would be that he and hisshipmates would never again remember it, on account of all handsgently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the solitary and savage seasfar from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it altogether unusualfor ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in full choruseven for a voyage of considerable length! that is, if it lie alonga tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat isafforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very outof the way part of those waters, some really landless latitude,that her captain begins to feel a little anxious. "Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leakwas found gaining once more, there was in truth some small concernmanifested by several of her company; especially by Radney themate. He commanded the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted homeanew, and every way expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, Isuppose, was as little of a coward, and as little inclined to anysort of nervous apprehensiveness touching his own person as anyfearless, unthinking creature on land or on sea that you canconveniently gentlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this imagine,solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the seamendeclared that it was only on account of his being a part owner inher. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there wason this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, asthey stood with their feet continually overflowed by the ripplingclear water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen- that bubblingfrom the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steadyspouts at the lee scupper-holes. "Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in thisconventional world of ours- watery or otherwise; that when a personplaced in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be verysignificantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightwayagainst that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike andbitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverizethat subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it. Bethis conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events Steelkiltwas a tall and noble animal with a head like a Roman, and a flowinggolden beard like the tasseled housings of your last viceroy'ssnorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and a soul in him,gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been bornson to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly as amule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not loveSteelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it. "Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pumpwith the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed,went on with his gay banterings. "'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold acannikin, one of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it'sworth bottling! I tell ye what, men, old Rad's investment must gofor it! he had
best cut away his part of the hull and tow it home.The fact is, boys, that sword-fish only began the job; he's comeback again with a gang of ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish,and what not; and the whole posse of 'em are now hard at workcutting and slashing at the bottom; making improvements, I suppose.If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump overboard andscatter They're playing the devil with his estate, I can tell him.But he's a simple old soul,- Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, they saythe rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I wonderif he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.' "'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney,pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away atit!' 'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively,boys, lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fiftyfire-engines; the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere longthat peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes thefullest tension of life's utmost energies. "Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, theLakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on thewindlass; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping theprofuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was,gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in thatcorporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened.Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to geta broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and removesome offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run atlarge. "Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece ofhousehold work which in all times but raging gales is regularlyattended to every evening; it has been known to be done in the caseof ships actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is theinflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness inseamen; some of whom would not willingly drown without firstwashing their faces. But in all vessels this broom business is theprescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be aboard.Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had beendivided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being the mostathletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assignedcaptain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have been freedfrom any trivial business not connected with truly nautical duties,such being the case with his comrades. I mention all theseparticulars so that you may understand exactly how this affairstood between the two men. "But there was more than this: the order about the shovel wasalmost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as thoughRadney had spat in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in awhaleship will understand this; and all this and doubtless muchmore, the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered hiscommand. But as he sat still for a moment, and as he steadfastlylooked into the mate's malignant eye and perceived the stacks ofpowder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match silently burningalong towards them; as he instinctively saw all this, that strangeforbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper passionatenessin any already ireful being- a repugnance most felt, when felt atall, by really valiant men even when aggrieved- this namelessphantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt.
"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by thebodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him sayingthat sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not doit. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed tothree lads, as the customary sweepers; who, not being billeted atthe pumps, had done little or nothing all day. To this, Radneyreplied, with an oath, in a most domineering and outrageous mannerunconditionally reiterating his command; meanwhile advancing uponthe still seated Lakeman, with an unlifted cooper's club hammerwhich he had snatched from a cask near by. "Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at thepumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance thesweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate;but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him, withoutspeaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last theincensed Radney shook the hammer within a few inches of his face,furiously commanding him to do his bidding. "Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windless,steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer,deliberately repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however,that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful andunspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off thefoolish and infatuated man; but it was to no purpose. And in thisway the two went onc